Bishop James Mathes
Easter Vigil Sermon
St. Paul's Cathedral, San Diego
March 22, 2008
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.
Cemeteries are places of quiet and repose. Some of us stroll through them because they are places of tranquility; others of us go there because that is where someone we love is to laid rest. We might say unfinished words to those we have lost or we might listen -- hoping for a final word from them. These places can be for us hollowed ground, yet they are also places of silence. They are places of sorrow and mourning.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were drawn to the holy ground of their rabbi. His brutal execution had not ended their love. They still tried to follow him even though they did not know how they would do so with such a large stone between him and them. Nevertheless, they went to where they knew he would be.
II.
Tonight we gathered in darkness. We gathered as if in a tomb. Indeed, our arrival was much like that of the two Marys before the Easter light. And in darkness, we light the Easter fire and in its glow, we tell the story of God’s saving acts for those of us who call upon his name. Our God is a creating God who makes this magical world out of nothing. Our God is a redeeming God who frees slaves by parting seas. And our God is a sustaining and empowering God who breaths new life even into a valley of dry bones. We tell this story so that we know who and whose we are.
And we tell the story by fire and candle light on this night as preface for those in the beginning of their Christian vocation who are to move with Christ through the tomb to new life. As the waters of baptism flow, each of us will renew our promises to God through our baptismal covenant and some of us will, through prayers and the laying on of hands, claim that baptismal faith in Christ as our own. Tonight is a night where God’s Holy Spirit moves over us with great power. It is as if we can feel the earth move under us.
“And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.” This God of creation, redemption, and new life in the Spirit is the God of the earthquake. This is the God who sends angels amongst us. And even though they will tell us not to be afraid, first they will turn our world upside down. We, Californians, worry about “The Big One.” But this is “The Big One!” It has already happened. This one event changes everything.
III.
When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary come to the burial place of Jesus they expect to find death. They expect to find sorrow. They expect things to be predictable. What they found was anything but predictable. This moment is God’s answer to Good Friday. It is not an answer of retribution like a mighty flood. It is an answer of astonishing, earth shaking liberation.
On this night, we gather, once in darkness, now in light. Each of us came here for a variety of reasons: some for the sacramental rites of Christ’s Church. And while many came out of deep faith, I dare say some came simply out of habit. I suspect that some of you came out of a hunger or yearning that you cannot fully describe or name.
As a bishop, I am supposed to be wise in the ways of faith and I will tell you that I have studied hard, prayed diligently, and tried to faithfully articulate the faith of the Church. I will also confess that I see myself as still a beginner in my discipleship. And I think that is true of all of us. And so as fellow beginners it might be helpful for us to keep our discipleship relatively simple. That discipleship is simply to give God’s great gift of love without exception.
IV.
In Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, a high society woman asks the wise spiritual leader to help her recover her lost faith. “How can I believe in God again?” she asks. He answers, “You must learn to love. Try to love your neighbors, love them actively and unceasingly. And as you learn to love them more and more, you will be more and more convinced of God and the immortality of your soul.”1
In an age when we are apt to get in circular and endless debates over doctrines and such, it is vital to remember that loving comes before believing. And I would suggest that we fleshed out what this love in action looks like when we remembered the Baptismal Covenant. It is in the harder places, “seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.” It is in the assertive places, “striving for justice and peace and respecting the dignity of every human being.”
On that first Easter morning, an angel gives the first joyful oracle and words of reassurance: “Do not be afraid.” And we need to hear those words as we live into the love of Jesus. Because trying on this love and living into it will take us into scary places and relationships. It will take us to dark corners where we are supposed to be bearers of light. And this is not always easy. After being reassured, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sent on their way to do their mission: Go quickly and tell the other disciples. What do you think were the chances that those disciples would actually believe two women—those without legal standing in society. Yet once again, as Fred Borsch has noted “In the gospel, it is improbable people announcing that the impossible is possible,” because God’s love is irresistible—literally cannot be resisted. When they hear God’s message to go, they do not stop to think; they act. And as they turn to go driven by love, they run right into Jesus. They find Jesus when they respond to the call to share love. And Jesus echoes the angelic call: go tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me. Continually sharing this message of love over retribution, hope over despair, new life over death brings you finally to Jesus.
V.
And so dear friends, that is where we are going. As disciples practicing divine love, we are going to Galilee to meet Jesus. We find our way to this Galilee by coming to this table and our family’s meal of bread and wine, where we remember Jesus, become what we eat, the Body of Christ.
In this Galilee, we join with Jesus in a new creation that we can just barely imagine but that is breaking in around us even on this night. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us that the bond of this table and this love is so radical “that we belong all to one family, because in this family all, not some, are insiders. Bush, bin Laden, gay, lesbian, so-called straight-all belong and are loved, are precious.”
This is the earthquake, literally the earth-shaking love that turns our world upside down, making the first last and the last first. And this is a foretaste of that heavenly promise, as we gather around a table that welcomes everyone. It is the table of love. It is where we practice what we are becoming. As the earth quakes with Christ’s unbounded love, even cemeteries cease to be silent. There and around God’s creation, saints past and present join together in anthems of Alleluia. Children reborn in Christ’s love: let us go and tell!
1I am grateful to the Very Rev. Samuel Lloyd for this reference which he also used in a sermon preached at Washington National Cathedral, January 22, 2006.