Day: April 7, 2012

Years and years and years ago, when one of my oldest friends was the minister of music for an Episcopal church, she dragged me along to the Vigil as an additional singer for her chorus. That was an experience – a service at midnight, processing into an entirely darkened sanctuary by feel and with tiny strips of reflective tape on the floor. Singing and waiting and standing and sitting – in the dark, in the pitch-black, with the feel of the dark pressing down, the smell of the incense, the ruffled high neck of the robe and surplice against my chin… Liturgy holds such tradition and mystery – and for a plain-Jane Protestant, the experience was a bit heady.

One song stands out from that night, amidst the other hymns and the traditional choral pieces we led and performed. For years I called it “the click song,” and begged my friend to remember the real title from amongst the reams of music she had done that night, so I could find the sheet music. She eventually unearthed When It Was Yet Dark, by Stephen Hatfield, and years later I sang it with my sister and her best friend for a 7 a.m. Easter service. I have no confirmation of this, for no one was awake enough to record, but we were told it was a beautiful performance. I can at least say that I know we did not go flat – it was simply too early; sharp, at that hour, is the order of the day. Still, I remember our voices belling out beautifully as we declaimed the end, Shame and pain can never defeat you! Spirit is fire, and flesh, it is clay…

The memory of our voices is with me still.

When It Was Yet Dark

Words by Stephen Hatfield

Then when Mary Magdalena came to the tomb to anoint the dead,
There in the midst of the Easter morning, she found an empty stone instead.
Where were the soldiers to guard the body?
Where was the click of dice at play?
Where was the smell of death and dying?
How was the great stone rolled away?

What does it mean and how could it happen?
Who would defile a poor man’s grave?
Where is the teacher who taught that even women like me were fit to save?

Woman, tell me why you’re weeping,
Why on a morn so fresh and fair?
I came to pray for my Lord, but look, his grave has been robbed and the tomb lies bare.
Can’t you tell me where he’s been taken?
I’ll do anything you say.
Where is the man who called me Mary when all of the others turned away?

Then he spoke to Magdalena; she heard her name so soft and low.
Then she knew he had died to teach her what there was no other way to know:
Shame and pain can never defeat you; spirit is fire and flesh it is clay.
Back to the clay go the men who mock you.
Death is a great stone rolled away.

One was Mary bearing the baby,
two was Mary whose brother was reborn;
Three was Mary Magdalena,
Bearing the gospel
On Easter morn.