Easter Vigil
March 26, 2016
Ex.14:10 Canticle 8, Ez
36:24-28 Psalm 42:1-7 Rom.6:3-11 Luke 24:1-12
A
Candle, A Story, A Citizenship Ceremony,
and a celebratory Meal. These are the
events of this evening, the most important evening in the life of the Church.
Why a Candle?
A candle is the symbol of light piercing the darkness. Jesus Christ was called by the early church,
the Light of World. Why did we need this
light? Because the world lived in the
darkness of half a life. The world lived
in only the natural world; it was not enlightened about another world, the
interior world of the kingdom of God. Jesus
Christ came to awaken the world to the spiritual world. Jesus came to show us that we are spiritual
beings and in knowing this we suddenly have lights turned on in our
darkness. When we are awakened to our
spirits we are awakened to our everlasting essence and this enables us to live
in the world of time where everything is changing and passing away.
Tonight is a night of our story. The Light of Christ happened within a
Story. And we read a portion of that
Great Story tonight. We read about Moses
and the Red Sea about Ezekiel and the Dry bones. If we did all of the readings, we would read
12 long readings. Jesus is not just drop
out of heaven in a vacuum, he arrived in a family with a genealogy and a
story. Jesus was continuous with a
spiritual tradition but the people needed a boost of light to highlight what
had been missing in the lives of people.
We read the story of the past as a way of tracing the genealogy of our
human experience and remembering how our identity has been formed.
Next, tonight is a citizenship ceremony. When one becomes an American citizen, one has
studied and then one takes an oath and one is received as a citizen of our
country. Tonight is the chief occasion
of baptism in the Church. It is a heavenly
citizenship ceremony. So you think that
you have only been born into a human family; no, you are also a son or daughter
of God. You were born into the kingdom
of God since God is the creator of the world.
So baptism is a celebration that each of us can know ourselves to be a
son or daughter of God and our family invites us to God’s family in baptism as
a citizenship ceremony. Tonight we
welcome persons into this wonderful experience of being known as children of
God. Everyone is always a child of God
but in Baptism the church has a celebration ceremony of this primary fact of
human identity, namely, we are all made in the image of God. We have God’s DNA as a part of us; God’s
Spirit is in us. Tonight in our
citizenship ceremony we are welcoming Jaiden, Adam and Melina.
Now what do we do when the family gets
together? We eat the family meal
together? And so tonight we move from
Baptism to Eucharist. The Eucharist is
the family meal. It is the meal of our
gathering. When we gather for the Christian
meal we are being renewed in our family identity as members of the body of
Christ.
Finally, why is this evening important? Why is lighting the Paschal Candle important
tonight? Why is reading our family Story
important tonight? Why is Baptism important
tonight? Why is Eucharist important
tonight?
All of these are important tonight because
tonight is when we celebrate the perpetuity of what we do? Why do all of these things have perpetuity? Because the Resurrection of Christ has given
us evidence of our afterlife? We will
continue our identity as sons and daughters of God forever, even beyond our
mortal lives. And so with great joy we offer again the Easter Shout.
Alleluia.
Christ is Risen. The Lord is
Risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen.
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