Sermons

Tridium Sermons

Preached by Mother Lizette Larson-Miller on Easter Vigil (Saturday, March 22, 2008)

The readings of the vigil; Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10

This is the night – I know I’ve been saying that for three nights now, but really, this is the night! This is the night when the stories of salvation history are told again and brought to the resurrection. This is the night when our stories are brought to these stories and both are made new. This is the night when we remember our baptism because others all over the world, and Brittany here in our midst have entered the waters of baptism to rise Christed forever, this is the night that the early church believed what was started would be ended – this is a good night to be in church because this is the night the early church believed Jesus would return. If Jesus is returning tonight, this is where you want to be. It is the beginning, it is the end, it is the turning point of our salvation, it is a new week, a new season, new relationships, a new life.

Tonight’s liturgy is a hodgepodge affair – even though the bulletin says it’s a mass, it’s really not a mass like any other day of the year – it is four liturgies stuck together from the second and third centuries, some of them just partial liturgies. First the light service, which probably began as a functional necessity (it’s dark, we can’t see, let’s light some candles) and then gained a theological interpretation of Jesus as the light of the world (with some generous contributions from Judaism and Greek religious practice). Then comes the vigil – we need to sit here in the church while people are being baptized somewhere else – we need to keep everybody awake, okay, we’ll do some readings, we’ll sing some psalms, we’ll do some prayers, and then we’ll do it again and then we’ll do it again and then we’ll do it again until they are done over there in the baptistery. So at the same time, the third liturgy is going on – people are being baptized in the baptistery, they are there and you are here because they are naked, and presumably you’re not invited – baptism was by invitation only – only those who needed to be there were there, everyone else was here, vigiling until the newly baptized and the bishop joined this group. Then the kiss of peace was shared – if you don’t have the Holy Spirit you can’t share the Holy Spirit, and only after baptism does that reality come to fruition. And finally, the last step of initiation for the newly baptized, they received their first communion, and so the community together celebrated the Eucharist – which because of the hour became the first Eucharist of Easter. So if this seems like a really long and oddly constructed liturgy, you’re right, it is.
It’s also interesting that we have inherited a way of doing this liturgy that seems to say that Easter doesn’t really start until we sing the alleluia – it is peculiar, isn’t it? Easter started 2000 years ago – it rings unceasingly through the centuries – it is the reality that makes us who we are – we are Easter people, on Maundy Thursday, on Good Friday, and yes, even at the Easter Vigil – it is Easter, it will be Easter for the next 50 days, it is Easter every single Sunday, even the Sundays in Lent, because out of the weekly celebration of the Lord’s resurrection came the annual feast of Easter, every Sunday is a little Easter, in many ways, every Eucharist is an Easter.

But could we celebrate Easter all year long? Is there something in our human nature that needs the alternation of fasting and feasting, of expectation and fulfillment, of work and dance? I suspect we know the wisdom in this ancient pattern helps us make sense of time, God’s time and
our time, so these seasons of Lent and Easter, Advent and Christmas are important as vehicles of God’s revelation. Tonight, however, is unique, the ‘mother of all vigils’ as St. Augustine called it is the source of both seasons – out of the Easter Vigil came the dominant strand of Lent, out of the Easter Vigil came the great 50 days of Easter, and it appears that out of this came even Christmas a couple centuries later.

But this ‘mother of all vigils’ is strange in that it is not just on the feasting, the fulfillment, and the dance side of the equation. It is betwixt and between, it is liminal time and space. In liturgical time, the new day begins when the sun sets. At sundown, several hours ago, it became Easter. Our civil inheritance of Roman time looks to midnight as the turning from one day to another – it is almost midnight. Greek time saw dawn as the beginning of the new day “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning…” This is time outside of time, neither completely in one day or the other.

We are here, in church, in the middle of the night, and we began this jumble of liturgies with the celebrant announcing, “this is the Passover of the Lord.” Now there has been more than one interpretation to the meaning of Pascha, Passover, in Christian history, but the winner seems to be the theology of passing over, transitus, Christ passing over from death to life. That was the first layer of meaning on this night. When baptisms were added to the Easter Vigil, another layer of meaning was added – this night also commemorates and celebrates our passing over, it is why we read from Paul’s letter to the Romans at every Easter vigil – “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death…for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” All of us, baptized this very night or recommitting ourselves tonight to the promises made at our own baptism participate in this great mystery, the paschal mystery. The baptism is real, we are conformed to Christ through water and the Holy Spirit, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever. The death in the waters of baptism is not real – not real in the sense of a physical death like the one that Jesus suffered, but the resurrection to come will be real – as was the resurrection of Jesus that we celebrate this very night. This is part of the mystery, that by sacramental reality we participate in death and by sacramental and literal reality we participate in resurrection.

The preface of the Eucharistic prayer tonight – and throughout Easter – says that “By his death he has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again he has won for us everlasting life.” But how can this be – we will still die, no matter how much we believe. Part of this Easter mystery, this Paschal mystery is connected very much to our own death. We too will pass over, our baptisms, our faithful response to the unchanging promise of God, and our own deaths are part of the Passover of this night. “By his death he has destroyed death…so that “for your faithful people, life is changed, not ended.” “For as we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” The migration of our soul at death is another passing over, but from life to life, life changed not ended.

We celebrate many things tonight – this is the night, when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave, this is the night when we hear of the first proclamation of the resurrection from the women at the tomb, this is the night that we recommit ourselves to do the same, proclaiming “by word and example the Good News of God in Christ” This is the night when we sing for joy in the mystery of a new beginning, this is the night when we thank God for new Christians, this is the night when we drink the wine of the new vineyard and eat at the heavenly banquet, this is the night when remembering life given for us, we also remember death endured for us, and life and love conquering all.

Perhaps we should let a bishop of the 2nd century have the last word of these three paschal sermons – from an Easter vigil homily of Melito of Sardis:

“The text of the Hebrew Exodus has been read and the words of the mystery have been explained: how the sheep was sacrificed for the salvation of the people.
For born Son-like, and led forth lamb-like, and slaughtered sheep-like, and buried human-like, he has risen God-like, being by nature God and human.
He is all things: in as much as he judges, Law; in as much as he teaches, Word; in as much as he saves, Grace; in as much as he begets, Father; in as much as he is begotten, Son; in as much as he suffers, sheep; in as much as he is buried,; human; in as much as he has risen, God.

This is Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”