My favorite service of the whole Christian year is the Great Vigil of Easter. It was incredibly difficlut to not be with the people of my parish as that holy night ushered in the first light of Easter. Most years I tend to focus on the night itself, on the baptisms that we often celebrate, or the unique quality of the liturgy, which starts in darkness and concludes in the light. This year, however, as my wife Kristen and I celebrated our own version of an Easter Vigil liturgy, I chose to do something different and focused my message on the five pieces from the Hebrew Scriptures that we had read earlier. These came from:
- Genesis 1: 1-2: 2
- Genesis 7: 1-5, 11-18; 8: 8-18; 9: 8-13
- Exodus 14: 10-15: 1
- Isaiah 55: 1-11
- Ezekiel 37: 1-14
The full video of the liturgy can be found below. The readings begin at 6:07, with my sermon starting at 42:02. This blog entry contains the text from that sermon. Blessed Easter, everyone! Alleluia! Christ is risen!
This is our story, brothers and sisters. It’s all here in this night. A seminary professor of mine once said that if Christians were allowed only one service all year long it would be the Great Vigil of Easter. And I think he was right. Even in a context like this, where I am literally preaching to an empty sanctuary, I think he was right. Even though we are unable to celebrate the baptism that was originally planned for this evening or share in the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, I think he was right. I think he was right, not so much because of what it is that we do on this night, but what this night represents and what it is that we hear. What we hear is our story, and like all stories worth telling, this one is a love story.
It is the story of love personified, of the relationship between creator and creation. The story begins in a way that very few stories of its kind ever began. Most of the ancient cultures from which all of ours sprang had similar stories of creation that arose from violence, generally some kind of cosmic war between Gods, titans, and monstrous beasts. There was always a winner and a loser, and always the narrative of redemptive violence, as humanity was so often spawned from the bloody mess of that conflict. But not in our story. In our story all things come into being not from violence, not from war, but from love. The creator sought nothing more than for there to be light and peace instead of darkness and chaos, and so the breath, the wind, the spirit of the creator moved over the waters and brought forth life, and the hope that such life would love the creator as much as the creator loved the life.
Over time, though, that life—human life, to be more precise—fell further and further away from their creator, their God. They sought their own power, privilege, and possessions, and gradually, God began to lose hope, bringing a terrible flood that sought to undo what God was beginning to believe was a mistake. Yet God’s love somehow managed to endure, and from a small family God established a covenant with human life. Like most love stories, this one needed some healing, and so God, rather than completely abandon humankind, tried again.
The voice of God would call out to individuals in the years to come, but the same powers of domination that nearly undid all God loved once before took form again in the empire of Pharaoh’s Egypt. In what was the most audacious and powerful example of love, God liberated a nation of people long held in bondage by Pharaoh. The ruler of this world tried to fight back, but God would have none of it, and through another favored one—Moses—God reminded Pharaoh and all of Moses’ people that such a God created all things to live in the freedom of the love of their creator. And so God’s people were set free.
But the powers of empire were not done. Generations later another world power, Babylon, would invade and take God’s people into exile as Pharaoh’s Egypt had done before. All seemed lost, as how could they rejoice and praise God in a foreign land? But from the voice of the prophet Isaiah God spoke, promising to work even with this calamity to make God’s people a beacon to the rest of the world, to show them what salvation could look like, to make it a free gif offered to all. God’s love endured, even in the midst of such uncertain and frightening times.
Still, there were those who felt that they had been abandoned, that God could not revive them, could not bring life out of such circumstances. But God’s love could not be held back. God chose another prophet, Ezekiel, to preach to a valley filled with bones, to call them back to life, to preach to the very breath of God, beckoning that breath, that spirit, that same holy wind that moved over the darkness and brought light, that stilled the waters of chaos and brought peace. Into the bones the breath of God went, and bone to bone, sinew to sinew, muscle to muscle, tissue to tissue, they came. This is what I can do, God said to Ezekiel. This is how much I love you and love my people, so much so that I will even bring life out of death.
For that is the promise God has made to all creation, not just to one nation or religion of people. It is the promise that God can take even death and bring life, for that is how amazing the love of the creator is for the creation. And in time, that love was given shape and form, feeling and life. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth God at last experienced love from the other side. But God experienced pain, as well. God felt loss when his friend died. God felt betrayed when the people of his hometown would not believe the words he spoke. God felt frustration and anger when his students wouldn’t listen. God felt the emptiness and pain of hunger and the hard boot of the occupier’s heel, as yet another empire—Rome—picked up where Babylon and Egypt had left off. In Jesus God knew the human condition all too well, and though God tried to liberate humanity from its need for power, prestige, and possessions, humanity killed God for it. Was there ever a bleaker moment? Was there ever a point when hope seemed the most fleeting? Of all the things humanity had done, all the times that God’s love had been squandered, surely this would be last straw.
And yet even still, love won. God won. In raising Jesus from the dead, God brought the story full circle, the same story that started with water and breath. There is no violent retribution. There is only an empty tomb and the promise that we will see Jesus, God’s love given human form, if we keep our eyes open for him. Rome tried, just like Babylon, just like Egypt. They all tried, and they all failed! They failed to snuff out the light of God because that light is the very life of the world. They failed to write a devastating conclusion to the story because they failed to understand that this is a love story. And love ALWAYS wins! Love won in the beginning over violence. Love won even when all had fallen astray. Love won when a people were liberated from bondage. Love won in the midst of exile. Love won in a valley of dry bones. Love won when an executed preacher got up from his stone slab. And love will win again! Love will win in the face of global pandemic. Love will win when those in power seek like those empires of old to lord it over others and crush the poor and oppressed. Love will win when all hope seems lost because the people of God always manage to recognize the very one who is love personified!
Easter’s dawn breaks, no matter what! In all the talks of postponing or cancelling in-person services I never once heard someone say that we’re cancelling Easter. Because you can’t! You can’t cancel Easter anymore than you can cancel the rising of the sun! You can’t cancel Easter because you can’t cancel the movement of God’s love in the world, no matter how hard you try! So may the light of Easter’s dawn break through your own darkness, filling you with the unspeakable, uncontrollable, and unbeatable love of God. Buildings may be closed, but the church thrives because if tonight teaches us anything it’s that God ALWAYS brings life from death, that God ALWAYS keeps God’s promises to God’s people, and that God’s love ALWAYS wins. Because from the very beginning, brothers and sisters, this is our story. Amen.
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