Easter Vigil

• “This is the night.”
  • No, not a Kenny G song.
  • the ancient chant that began Easter Vigil services
  • as the Ancients marked time, sundown began the next day
  • as they saw it, we have come to the first day - the day of the Resurrection
  • this is Easter, friends! Just like usual Saturday night service.
  • But as we hear in the Gospel, it is still dark as Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb; this is still the night, and with it comes mystery. Unexplained events.
• we never see the resurrection of Jesus; we don’t hear about how it happened; we don’t know exactly when it happened, or how long it happened
• equal parts curiosity and anxiety, I want to explain it
• but I can’t. And I shouldn’t.
• “In all things mysterious - Never explain.” Stanley Kubrick
• It’s God after all. How could we?
• But it’s not a God shrouded in mystery who lives light years away. Our God shows up in the most human place possible. In the one place that defines us mortals more than anything else: a grave.
• Not only was God content to create us, not only was God content to walk the earth with us, to eat, work, and cry with us. God chose to die with us.

Here’s a mystery. God entered human existence to feel hunger like we do, the feel thirst like we do, to feel weariness and pain like we do. To be lonely, angry, and disappointed by his friends. To die like we do. But at the same time, Jesus gave bread to the hungry. Healed those suffered. Connected those who were outcast. Gave life to the dead.

Our mystery is that at the same time we praise a God that lives with us and dies with us.

The Resurrection is a mystery. But it’s right in front of us.

Even Mary Magdalene, who devoted herself to Jesus, didn’t recognize the Resurrection. Jesus stood right before her, but the grip of death was so strong that she couldn’t believe - until he called her by name.

The grip of death is strong in our lives, too. We’re afraid of getting older, so we are tempted to buy sports cars for our midlife crises, put aging creams on our faces, and lie about our age. (I realize it’s not fair for you to hear this from someone who barely qualifies for a quarter-life crisis…but life isn’t fair is it?) We can get wrapped up in so many anxieties about losing the stuff of our lives that we can forget the promise of life itself.

But the Resurrection is for us, and it’s right in front of us.

And God calls us by name. Did you hear your name? In Mary weeping over the loss of a friend, did you hear your name? In Mary startled by unexpected things, did you hear your name? In the disciples running back to the tomb, out of breath, hoping against hope that maybe…just maybe…Mary was right?

Ayden Grant Steenrod was surrounded today by people who love him, by some water, and by God’s own promise to know his name. To claim him as a son.

God knows you by name, and God enters into your lives, too. God enters into your struggles to bring peace. At work, at home, in doctor’s offices. God enters into your hurting relationships and brings forgiveness.

Every day. Every day that you wake up and live again into the baptismal promises that we remembered tonight.

Easter is for you. For all of us. For every part of our lives.

There is no better way to say so than an Easter Sermon preached over 1500 years ago by John Chrysostom. This sermon is still read today in many Orthodox churches on Easter morning.

I’ve paraphrased it, and I want to close with it. See if you hear your name.

2012 Paraphrase of John Chrysostom’s Easter Sermon

Does anyone here whole-heartedly love God? Enjoy this beautiful and bright celebration.

Is anyone here a grateful and hard worker? Rejoice in God.

Is anyone here weary from waiting for Easter? Now you can relax.

Those of us who have worked faithfully from the very first hour can receive our reward.

Those of us who came after the third hour, can gratefully join this feast.

Those of us who came after the sixth hour, can worship without fear.

And those of us who just made it in for the eleventh hour, we should not worry, either.

God is merciful, and loves the last as much as the first. Whatever your last few weeks have been like: anxious, wonderful, boring, a blur…God is for you.

God gives gifts to each and every one of us — whether we think we’re important or not. Whether we think we’ve done well or poorly. God says we are worthy.

So, we can be joyful.

All of us — Easter is for us. Rich and poor, we rejoice together.

The successful among us, the down-and-out among us, we can all celebrate tonight. If you had and kept a Lenten devotion, or if you utterly failed on Day One. (Like I did.) Easter is for us. The feast is ready.

Tonight’s celebration is the real thing. Enjoy it, because this is God’s gift to us.

God dries our tears today, because in the Kingdom of God, there are no more losers.

It doesn’t matter how many times we fail because forgiveness has risen from the grave.

None of us need fear even death, because the death of Jesus has set us free.

God has destroyed death by enduring it. God destroyed hell by going through it.

We find this foretold in the book of Isaiah which says that, “Hell was stirred up by meeting you.”

Death got eclipsed.

Death got mocked.

Death got destroyed.

Death got abolished.

Death got made captive.

Death grasped a corpse, and met God.

Death seized a mortal, and found the immortal.

Death took the finite, and was overcome by the infinite.

Death where is your sting?

Hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen and death is over.

Christ is risen and evil has lost.

Christ is risen and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen and life is set free.

Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of its dead.

Rejoice because Christ — risen from the dead — is the first of the Resurrection promise we all share in him.

To Christ be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Alleluia. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.