Out of the Tomb: The Black Queer Jesus & the Easter Vigil, Part 3
Written in the spring of 2018, “Out of the Tomb: The Black Queer Jesus and the Easter Vigil” was produced for the completion of my Masters of Divinity Degree at Vanderbilt University. It is an offering that seeks to reflect upon the intersections of embodiment, theology, and ritual practice. As I prepared to share this, I found myself surprised by how much has remained the same and changed within me since then. I offer this three part series in honor of Holy Week, the time in which the Christian/Jesus Following Community honors The Anointed One’s entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday leading up to his resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Additional Note: There is a reference to the writings of Raniero Cantalamessa regarding the early understandings of Jesus’ murder in relationship to ritual practice among Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians. Cantalamessa discusses the “paschalization” of the Eucharist, thus giving a basis for Atonement Theology, and later, full blown Supersessionism (the idea that Judaism is incorrect/incomplete and Christianity is the “fix.”) Not only is such an idea harmful, it is wrong. Yet the argument has been laid for centuries, and it is important that I bring it up here so that we might all be better prepared to address anti-Semitism when it appears.
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Easter Vigil & Pastoral Care
The defining action in the life of the Church is the Easter event. Detailed in three of the four canonical gospels, the resurrection of Jesus the Christ exemplifies one of God’s most presumptuous actions in relation to humankind. Yet to understand the complexity of the Easter event as celebrated by the professing community, one must understand the historical and theological foundation that it originates from as imparted by the canonical writers themselves. As Raniero Cantalamessa describes in his work, Easter in the Early Church,
“This is precisely where the most original diversification of the Christian Pascha began; in the divers degrees and manners in which the several authors “paschalized the life of Jesus, presenting it as the realization of the ancient Pesach. It was a gradual process, occupying the entire period of the formation of the Canon. The Synoptics “paschalize” the Eucharist: they see in it — that is, in the Last Supper — the moment at which the Pascha of Christ replaced the Jewish one and the memorial of the Lord’s death was superimposed on the memorial of the Exodus.”[34]
As Cantalamessa describes, the canonical writers drew a correlation between the Jewish Pascha, or Passover, which commemorates the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage with the crucifixion of Jesus for the sins of the world. In this context, partaking in the Easter Vigil, culminating in the Eucharist, is to take part in the redemptive mission of liberation as prepared by God Herself.
Scholars and religious leaders alike have spent a great deal of time in discussion as to whether the meaning of the Easter Vigil is most properly understood literally or metaphorically, and to what extent such an interpretation should have on one’s theology. But such a discourse fails to recognize the ancient and contemporary understanding of this extremely personal event and furthermore prevents a deeper understanding as to how people may fully participate in this mystery of faith from the starting point of their own lived experience — particularly so for us as queer black men.[35] Like no other occasion within the Christian calendar, time is brought together in the salvific act of the Black Queer One’s victory over empire. The incarnation of God in human body (whether it is Jesus’ alone or that of every human person) demonstrates that the Divine and the physical intersect in a powerful and mystical way, that the physical is important and can never be divorced from the spiritual, and that the Divine yearns to become one with the humanity over and over again, resulting in the eternal cycle of birth and rebirth, death and resurrection, creation and salvation.”[36] It is in God’s joining of time that She most clearly demonstrates her judgment, not over us, but over death-dealing systems of conformity known in and through Christian white supremacy and its demonic lovechild of heteronormativity.[37]
Unlike other communal celebrations within the Christian tradition, the Easter event has been recognized in some form or fashion since the inception of the Church some 2,000 years ago. Yet because of its importance, many have come to understand their communities’ practices of Easter as either an unbroken tradition reaching back centuries or having received very little changes in recent memory. But as Cantalamessa points out, “in historical actuality, as we know, Easter was not originally a fixed institution, everywhere the same; rather it was a living reality in continual development.”[38] Many communities, individually or on a denominational level, have made changes to the rite as to make sense of it within their context. In relatively recent history here in the West, the Ordo of 1995 by the Roman Catholic Church served to give the tradition a more universal practice, like that of the Ancient Church. This included beginning the Easter Vigil before the hours of dawn, the blessing of the paschal fire outside of the church and the opportunity for the gathered community to light their own individual flame, the blessing of baptismal water, and the renewal of the baptismal promise. All of which reflected, in some part, 5th century practice from Jerusalem.[39] It is the lighting of the paschal flame, the renewal of the baptismal promise, and participation in the Sacred Meal that form the three quintessential elements of the Easter Vigil.
Analysis and Application
Participation in the elements of the Easter Vigil, either in part or in full, does three things for queer black men. First, the ritual elements enable us to tangibly interact with God’s gift-givingness through the Black Queer One. Second, it allows for simultaneous participation on individual and communal levels. And lastly, participation in the Vigil fortifies us as black queer men to take God’s radical love into the broken world like armor, sustaining us from white supremacy and heteronormativity as it is directed at us. This last point most clearly articulates the meaning of liturgy, the work of the people, and how we are both required to remember our place in God’s Kindom and are called to see that Kindom on earth “as it is in heaven.”[40]
Lighting of the Paschal Flame
The spiritual core of lighting the paschal flame represents the light given to the world through the resurrection of the Black Queer Christ. As an assembled community gathered in the hours before dawn, the fire is lit to guide our paths into the house of God. It is here that we begin to re-member ourselves into the Kindom of God. This one flame gives way to the individual lights that we each take as the procession into the church begins, accompanied with hymns and the readings of scripture. This symbolizes the light we carry within us as queer men, undeniable children who have been named and claimed, as we move through the world. The scriptures speak to the struggles of the ancestors of the Black Queer One and their overcoming of oppression through the will of God. Ultimately, the kindling of the paschal flame sparks the jubilant hallelujahs proclaiming the triumph of God in Jesus.
The light of the Black Queer Jesus is one that illuminates the darkness of sin in its various forms, but in particular, its manifestation as heteronormative white supremacy as perpetuated by the false empire of the White Christ. This light brings hope, joy, justice, and awareness that illuminates our paths as queer black men. This holy flame enables us to look into the water of the baptismal fount as to see ourselves more fully within the Kindom of God Herself. It cleanses us of the internalized homophobia and racism that pulls on our heartstrings and drives us wild as we push back against ideas of conformity. The paschal flame sooths our weary spirits, reminding us that we are already known and perfectly made whole from the moment of our conception (Jer.1:5).
Renewal of the Baptismal Promise
Once the gathered community has settled and the appointed readings have been uttered, our baptismal promise is renewed. This is the moment when we as individuals in community profess our transgressions against God Herself; the moments when we fall pray to the systems of death, believing that we were not made whole or worthy enough, or when we perpetuated violence against others in hope that it would somehow make us a part of a system which sees no value in us. Yet in the resurrection of the Black Queer Jesus, in the renewal of our baptismal promise, we are reminded that we are loved. This radical love pulls us ever closer to God Herself through the Black Queer One, demonstrating how She has been on our side all along. As the blessed water is sprinkled upon us, we are sealed in God’s radical love known in struggle and solidarity and our placement within the Beloved Kindom is reassured once more.
This moment is where we are at our most vulnerable; we recall the times in which our hearts have been broken open time and time again due to a world that has yet to fully understand us. In a matter of speaking, we are naked before our Creator in an intimate momentary conversion. EL Kornegay Jr. speaks about this state in his reflection on James Baldwin and the queering of black theology,
“In other words nakedness symbolizes a divestiture of the social signifiers, ideological complexes, and logonomic systems that control behavior and disconnect bodies from one another. This creates liminal space between and among bodies: it allows for communion… If Eden is to be recaptured then it is found in these moments before the first leafy barrier to our sexuality was applied — before nakedness, before sexuality, before knowing another sexually was deemed a sin.”[41]
In the Black Queer Jesus we are laid naked before God Herself, striped of the confines of the world that seeks to mold us into beings that we were not created to be. This nakedness reminds us of who we are and calls us to unapologetically participate in that living-giving mission of self as the Black Queer One did. Such a revolutionary action calls us back to the moment of our collective creation as detailed in the Genesis account in which God asks Eve and the Adām, “who told you that you were naked…(Gen. 3:11)?” The world of sin seeks to make us shameful of our embodiment but God says otherwise, she calls us to be as we were created — free! This is the love of the Easter Mystery, while the world might damn us, God on the other hand proclaims our goodness and deems us worthy as we are made anew.
The Sacred Meal (Eucharist, Communion)
The final element of our Easter Vigil is the sacred meal that we as queer black men have been invited to participate in by the Black Queer Christ. At the open table, the altar of God, we interact fully in the mystery of faith that is a God made known in flesh. Here we partake in that mystery as it is meant for us. As instructed within the canonical gospels, the elements are blessed and we share in the table. It is important to note that we are not partaking in a sacrificial meal of the suffering servant variety but are instead taking part in a sacred rite that recalls our own sacred struggle as Jesus did and does alongside us. This is the meal of the Beloved Kindom, one that revitalizes us along the journey towards the promise land where the shadow of death-dealing oppression resides no more.
In conjunction with the other two elements, the sacred meal is the pinnacle of the Easter Vigil itself, the moment where we fully participate in the Kindom of God, where the divisions of the sacred and profane are no more and all things point back towards God in Christ. As M. Shawn Copeland says, “[the] Eucharist is that inalienable gift that anchors believers in time, connects them to another as well as to their origin, intimates their future, and ‘concentrate[s] the greatest imaginary power and, as a consequence, the greatest symbolic value.”[42] Through the sacred meal, no matter if it is done in truth or token, we as coconspirators in God’s mission are anchored evermore in Her Kindom, grounded in her life-givingness, and known fully and completely. This is the moment that the snares of the world bow at our feet instead of the other way around. Here we are redeemed and made new once more, internally and externally, both as individuals and as a community. We have taken upon the struggle for liberation in a mysterious way as instructed by the Black Queer Jesus. The three elements of the Easter Vigil, the lighting of Paschal Flame, renewal of the Baptismal Promise, and participation of the Sacred Meal, is a collective enactment of God’s doing in the word today. When we partake in these sublime movements as black queer men, in recognition of the Black Queer One, we boldly uphold the God within and beyond of us. In so doing we actively take part in the millennia old struggle for liberation as oppressed people towards our collective deliverance from sin and despair. It is one where we participate in God’s mission as it supplies resistance in light of sin and resiliency in the face of despair.
Conclusion
Through a conversation with queer and black theologies of liberation, the Black Queer Jesus comes into focus as one who stands at the intersections of being for queer black men. When applied to the three elements of the Easter Vigil: the lighting of the paschal flame, the renewal of the baptismal promise, and the Eucharist, we come to know the Black Queer One as he walks alongside us in day to day experiences. As such, the death dealing theology of White Jesus known in the form of heteronormativity is overturned. Ultimately, the Black Queer Jesus comes to name and claim us as God’s own, reminding us that we too are innately a part of the Kindom of God.
[34] Raniero Cantalamessa, Easter in the Early Church (Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1993), 6–7.
[35] Cantalamessa, Easter in the Early Church, 8.
[36] Bohache, Christology From the Margins, 213.
[37] Rudolf Schwarzenberger, “Easter: The Feast of Feasts,” in Celebrating the Easter Vigil, ed. Rupert Berger and Hans Hollerweger, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (New York: Pueblo Publishing Company, 1983), 93.
[38] Cantalamessa, Easter in the Early Church, 3.
[39] John Allyn Melloh, “Revising Holy Week and Easter Rites,” in Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times, ed. Paul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffman (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 222–223.
[40] Elaine Ramshaw, Ritual and Pastoral Care, ed. Don S. Browning (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 22–23.
[41] EL Kornegay, Jr., A Queering of Black Theology: James Baldwin’s Blues Project and Gospel Prose (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), 112.
[42] M. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 108.
