A Sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter

If you had asked me when I was about 10 years old, what my favorite service of the Church Year was, I’m sure I would have told you Christmas Eve. What’s not to love about singing familiar carols and candlelight and the expectant hope of Christmas morning? Not that I was so excited about things like the incarnation. I was mostly entranced by the loot waiting for me and my siblings under the tree…

Fast forward to my college years. I still loved a good Christmas Eve service, but something happened to change my perspective, as your college years are, in many ways, designed to do. My best friend was a former Roman Catholic. We both had grown tired of the services we had been attending weekly at our local Methodist Church. Holy Week came one year, and I agreed to accompany him on a road trip about 90 minutes out into the Kentucky countryside to visit a place I had heard of only in local legend.

We navigated some rather harrowing twists and turns along some of Kentucky’s unlined and narrow back roads, wondering “are we there yet?” In the days before GPS or cell phones, we wondered several times if we had missed a turn. It was dark. The rolling hills were less charming in the dark than they were ominous, more like towering waves in a stormy sea. You couldn’t tell what was on the other side of the next. Suddenly, as we rounded a bend, in front of us was our destination. Lit up like a great ocean liner in the midst of this very dark landscape was Gethsemani Abbey, the Trappist Monastery where Thomas Merton had lived and written many of his works. We were there for Easter Vigil. It started at Midnight! Gethsemani is the kind of place where time seems to stop. The Vigil would last for hours. What else did we have to do?

We began gathered around a large bonfire. As we chanted, the bonfire was lit, much like the fire we kindled here, just moments ago. From that now roaring bonfire the paschal candle was lit, and then the ones in our hands. By the time the procession made its way into the pitch-black Nave, I can tell you, I was HOOKED! I love drama! In my uninitiated Methodist mind, I wondered, “How long has THIS been going on?” And they hadn’t even lit the incense yet!!!

Thus began a journey that eventually led me to the Episcopal Church. To this day, I still love a good Christmas Eve service, but for me, this is the principal service of our liturgical year as Christians. Whether it takes place on Saturday night or in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning, the elements and the affect are the same. We enter a dark space. With the altar stripped it can feel like a tomb. You might see people rushing about, taking care of last-minute details. Voices are hushed. There’s a sense of expectation in the air.

Then come some of my favorite words in the entire Prayer Book. They are in italics – a rubric. In the darkness, fire is kindled…

Christians have been kindling that new fire from the earliest days of our faith. When we gather to kindle that new fire, we do it from scratch (and I’ve seen it done in every way from flint and tinder to a cigarette lighter). When we gather to light that fire, we put ourselves in the place of women who rushed to the tomb in the pre-dawn hours that first Easter morning. When we wait in the darkness, we may feel some of the fear the disciples felt, hiding, fearing arrest. In that hopeless moment, we suddenly discover something miraculous has happened.  Light in the darkness. Hope begins to replace grief and fear.

As we made our way into this dark space, we, the Children of God, gathered by candlelight to hear our story from our first rebellion, to God’s persistent redemption. God did not abandon us when we turned away. God heard our cries when we were slaves in Egypt. God rescued us from Pharaoh’s army with nothing but a sea in front of us. God breathed new life into a valley filled with nothing but dead dry bones. In ages past, when we were faced with fear, God answered with hope. When we saw nothing but death, God breathed life. When we cried out, God heard.

At Gethsemani, we did ALL the readings, chanting psalms in between. There were baptisms and so much more. This night is unlike any other. This night is special.

We know that Christians have been gathering for services like this since our earliest days. Can you imagine those first few years after the resurrection? When Jesus seemed dead and gone, when all hope seemed lost, did stories like these fill the hearts and minds of Mary Magdalene? Did Peter remember them? Did Mary his mother ponder all that had happened in her miraculous life and find a spark of hope? Can you hear them recounting their own first encounter with the risen Lord? Thanks be to God they shared their stories with us.

Christians have continued to gather to hear these stories. When new converts were to be baptized, Christians gathered, often in private, secret ceremonies. In the face of Empire, Christians dared to gather, to tell these stories. No doubt they too feared arrest. In times of plague and war and persecution, Christians have gathered to tell these stories, waiting for God’s redemption. We have gathered tonight to hear these stories, and these stories bring us hope.

If you’ve been to a vigil before, you know what’s coming. Joy is coming. Proclamation is coming. Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus sent these women as the first apostles to proclaim the good news.

God has heard our cries. God has NOT abandoned Jesus, and God has NOT abandoned us. God’s wonderful deeds of old shine forth even to this day! God has saved us in the past. God will save us today and tomorrow and always. God shows up! Why? Because God loves us.

This is the night when we celebrate that love.

This is the night, when we tell stories of that miraculous and live-giving love.

This is the night, when God brought us out of bondage in Egypt, and led us through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when God breathed breath into dry bones.

This is the night, when we are delivered from sin.

This is the night, when Jesus breaks the power of death and hell, and rises victorious from the grave.

How holy and blessed is this night! Thanks be to God! Amen!