The Great Vigil of Easter
The Great Vigil of Easter
St. Paul's Cathedral, April 15, 2006
Matthew 28: 1-10
Come Holy Spirit: Touch our minds and think with them, touch our lips and speak with them and touch our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. AMEN.
I.
This is the night: “when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land…when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness…when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grace.” This is the night!
And so tonight, we gather in darkness and a fire is kindled from which the light of Christ emerges. As we pass the light,” it comes to candles in our hands, sparkles in our eyes, enters our hearts, and reaches around the room. It leaks out doors and windows. It is carried by our voices and by the voices of angels: The light of Christ! The light of Christ! The light of Christ! This light the truly circles the planet on this holy night.
II.
And in this paschal light, we gather with water. This is the same water that God sweeps with a wind as if from God’s own breath and spirit at the beginning of all. These waters are divided as God delivers Israel from the armies of Pharaoh. The waters moisten the dry bones with God’s spirit and Israel in exile is promised new life. The waters flow in the desert and restore even desolate Jerusalem. And the waters flow as we claim again our baptismal faith and are sprinkled with the waters of baptism. This is the night. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, through the cross and empty tomb and pierced hands that once again break bread and feed, we are reborn to a new life in Jesus Christ. This is what our faith has to say more than anything else.
III.
In our baptismal covenant, we speak words that are not too often used. We speak of evil, sin and the devil. We might quibble over the particular personification of evil, but we cannot deny that darkness is always at hand. We cannot deny that evil and sin exist. For we live in a world of poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, greed, famines, genocides, a world of wars. It is a world where darkness is always present. This is the night when we renounce all that is evil, even as we acknowledge our continuing capacity to fall and sin again and the continual need for repentance and forgiveness.
This is the night when all of us will reclaim our baptismal faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and what it means to us and to the world. This night and this darkness of evil and sin have ended. We are awash in the light of Christ and are be children of the light.
IV.
For you see, there was a great earthquake. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary felt it. They saw the angel. They saw the empty tomb. They heard the Easter proclamation, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised…and indeed is going ahead of you to Galilee...” And as they were running they came upon Jesus who greeted them again and said, “Do not be afraid…”
V.
Sam Lloyd, who recently became dean of our National Cathedral, describes what it really means for Jesus to be raised from the dead:
If Jesus is raised from the dead then Apartheid one day had to fall, and it did, Communism could not keep the tombs of Europe sealed forever, and thanks largely to Christians it didn’t. If Easter is real then whole nations can learn how to forgive, as South Africa has. Jesus’ spirit is on the move and it’s no longer attached just to him but is filling the lives of anyone who want to be his disciple. If Christ is raised from the dead, then we can’t stay in our own personal little tombs anymore. We cannot let our problems define us—a broken relationship, or a troubled child, or a long struggle with depression.
This night is about life in Christ conquering death. It is about all things being made new, the broken, the battered, the poor, the ugly, the rejected, and the mournful. Through Christ, we too are taken once and for all from the night of a darkened tomb in the light of love and Godly presence.
This is the night of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the night of our own resurrection. That is why Jesus tells us to not be afraid. We can face our own darkness and the darkness of the world without fear. In a word, we do not have to fear ourselves or those whom we encounter in this world.
In the end after this night, nothing will ever be the same. You will leave this place different than you were when you entered. You have been renewed by the waters of your baptism. You have been washed over by the love of God that is so immense that it can change a world of night and darkness into a world of life and light. Fear is vanquished.
And in place of fear, we are given a new spirit. Eugene O’Neill perhaps captured this new spirit in his play, Lazarus Laughs. In it, he pictures Lazarus standing before a cruel Roman emperor who's threatened him with death. Lazarus laughs softly and says, “Death is dead, Caligula, death is dead.” And so we too laugh. We laugh with Lazarus and we laugh with Jesus. Fear is vanquished. Death is dead. The light is overwhelming the darkness.
VI.
And so this is the night. This is the night when we go from this place into the world as followers of a resurrected Jesus. And this makes all the difference for us and those whom we encounter along the way. As C.S. Lewis suggested in The Weight of Glory, in light of the resurrection, “there are no ordinary people. You [will never again] talk to a mere mortal…but with immortals we will joke, work, marry, love, bury, care, heal…the list goes on. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, the one who is your neighbor, the stranger, the poor, the different…next to the Blessed Sacrament, that person is the holiest object you will ever encounter.
The tomb is empty. The waters of new life have touched us. Do not be afraid. You are a child of the light. Let us laugh with joy and go into the world to tell the story of Jesus alive in our lives. Let us be the people of the resurrection. This was the night. It is now the day of the resurrection. Alleluia.