c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

(UNDATED) I wanted music this Easter.

Not the trumpet of muscular Christianity, but the oboe _ melancholy and yet floating, somber and yet capable of dancing _ a sound suitable for an empty tomb whose message isn’t yet known.

Not the grand pipe organ of triumphant Christianity, but the horn _ hard to play, sometimes lost in the symphony’s full sound and yet unmistakable by itself _ a sound suitable for not knowing where to take one’s confusing discovery.

Not the massed choirs of large Christianity, but the alto voice _ the voice that adds harmony to the melody _ a voice suitable for walking in pairs.

I thought of going to church this Easter Day. But I felt distanced from trumpets, grand sounds, full pews. Not that there is anything unseemly about such grandeur. I am walking a different road this year. That’s all.

I am walking Mark’s road, I think, an Easter Gospel that begs no shouts of triumph, but ends abruptly in “terror and amazement.” From other sources, the rest of Easter became known. But Mark said nothing of such victory. Did Mark not know the rest of the story, or was Mark urging the faithful to stay longer in the emptiness?

Mark doesn’t preach as readily as other accounts. Many Easter preachers probably went straight to “Easter triumph, Easter joy,” to Paul’s vision of the Risen Christ “seated at the right hand of God” and of believers sharing his “glory.” With one’s flock dressed up and eager, it is the rare preacher who will speak of “terror and amazement,” of a message so confusing that the first witnesses dared not tell it to anyone, not yet.

Or if they braved that road, it was at a Vigil, where silence was valued and wouldn’t disturb the day’s festivities.

I have done my share of triumphant exuberance. I remember one year, being so moved by trumpets and voices that I literally shouted the Easter acclamation, “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” I thought I knew the full story, and I considered it worthy of shouting. I was well wrapped in the mantle of the church and its abiding convictions.

And yet, even amid the shouting, I heard Mark’s account of the empty tomb. Even then, despite the full sanctuary, I sensed that we were missing something. Not that our creeds were erroneous, but that faith’s assertion _ “On the third day he rose again” _ hadn’t yet been fully understood. Locking it down in creedal formula was premature.

I think we need to stay longer in Mark’s Easter moment _ empty tomb, confusing words, not knowing what to do next, afraid to talk, asking God for guidance, for courage to see. If the three witnesses of Mark’s Gospel “went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid,” maybe we should consider the subject not yet closed but still unfolding, even now, 19 centuries after bishops declared the New Testament done. Locking the doors of our faith and declaring all questions settled seem fearful, not faithful.

I don’t think the rising of Jesus was a precursor to an institution’s triumph. It was victory over darkness and death. It was victory won by self-emptying. It was a call to go, but not the naming of destination. It was the first step on a journey into the not-yet-known, not to be heralded by the trumpet fanfare of triumphant arrival, but to be serenaded by the subtler oboe of beckoning. There is no less joy in journeying than in arriving, but it is a humbler joy.

And so, this year, I said my own Easter prayers. I asked for guidance and prayed for my family, who were traveling. Then I turned on the radio and was greeted by an oboe duet, a concerto for horn, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s painstaking blending of voices.

Bach knew trumpets, but in the slow movement of his “Easter Oratorio,” it is the horns that lead the way and beckon the trumpets to sing. If I were to guess what God is doing in our midst today, I would say that God is beckoning us, not crowning us.

DEA END EHRICH