Readings: Genesis 1:1-2:2; Exodus 14:15-15:1; Isaiah 55:1-11; Baruch 3:9-15, 32-4:4; Ezekiel 36:16-28; Romans 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12
The story of salvation
that is rehearsed in the scriptures
of our Easter Vigil
might seem like tales
of the “glory days” of God’s people.
So much of our faith,
and of this Vigil celebration in particular,
is tied up with memory,
and memory can give us a sense of grounding
in our collective and individual histories,
but it might also bring with it
a sense of regret and even resentment
over the loss of past glories.
Perhaps there is something wrong with me,
but sometimes when I hear
the story of salvation rehearsed
I find myself saying,
“if only… if only…”
If only I could have been there to witness
the kinds of miracle that God used to perform:
calling the universe into being with a word,
parting seas and slaying attacking armies.
If only I could have heard the voice of God
speaking directly through the prophets,
offering words of warning and of comfort
that could pierce the hardest of hearts.
If only I could have been there, like the women,
to see angels proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus
or even, like Peter,
just the empty tomb
and burial cloths.
If only…
Sometimes I hear these stories from the past
of the great and mighty deeds of God
and feel an odd sort of regret—
the sense that the best days of our faith are in the past.
God’s activity in the world used to be so clear:
those were literally “glory days,”
when the light of God seemed to burst forth
with undeniable clarity,
and those who saw and heard and experienced these things
were so bathed in that light
that I imagine that they
could not help but be moved to faith.
But all we today have are reports from the past,
of what God once did
but seems to do no more.
Where have the glory days of our faith gone?
This sense of loss,
this sense of passing glory,
can haunt not only the story
of God’s people as a whole,
but also each of our individual stories:
if only I could return to the kind of simple faith
that I had as a small child.
If only I could recover the fervor of faith
that I had when I first entered the church.
If only…
And not just we as individuals,
but even as a parish community:
I think, if only Mary Jane O’Brien or Tom Ward
could be here at this Vigil with us,
or Mary Alma Lears could be sitting with her daughters,
or Henry Tom could making himself busy
with many, many, many details…
but we look around us and we see them no longer,
and our celebration seems that much less glorious,
and we are beset by a sense of loss and regret
and maybe even resentment at their absence:
If only…
But the God of Easter is not a God
of regrets and resentments.
The God of Easter is not a God
who promises to “make Christianity great again,”
as if some new savior must come
to return the church and us to some past glory.
No, the God of Easter says,
“This is the night.”
Not some dimly recalled days of glory in the past,
nor hoped for days of glory yet to come,
but this is the night.
This is the night when the waters part
and slaves are freed,
this is the night when prophets speak
and hearts are changed,
this is the night,
when Christ breaks the prison-bars of death
and rises victorious.”
It is the night that redeems all our losses,
the night when waning embers of faith
are stirred into new light,
the night that “dispels wickedness,
washes faults away,
restores innocence to the fallen,
and joy to mourners,
drives out hatred,
fosters concord,
and brings down the mighty.”
This is the night when all those whom we have lost—
Mary Jane, Tom, Mary Alma, Henry,
parents and children and spouses and friends—
stand with us in the light of eternal glory.
For this is the night of Christ,
whose empty tomb stands as an outpost of eternity
in this world of passing glory.
This is the night in which we die and rise with Christ,
so that we live with him now in newness of life,
and living that new life, that eternal life,
we witness to the reality of a glory
that carries us through days of loss and regret
to the day when God will be all in all.
This is the night when we leave behind “if only,”
the night when all the glory of the past,
and all the glory that is to come,
and all the glory that now lies hidden in our midst,
shines forth in Jesus risen among us:
“Christ yesterday and today,
the beginning and the end,
the Alpha and the Omega,
all time belongs to him,
and all the ages;
to him be glory and power,
through every age and for ever.
Amen.”
