Easter Vigil

Readings: Genesis 1:1-2:2; Genesis 22:1-18; Exodus 14: 15-15:1; Isaiah 54-5-14; Isaiah 55:1-11; Ezekiel 36:16-17a, 18-28; Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10

“The guards were shaken with fear…
and became like dead men.”

We humans spend a lot of time
trying to domesticate God,
trying to put God on a leash,
trying to bring God to heel
and train him not to make messes in the house.
We labor to contain God within the role
of a therapeutic remedy for our anxieties,
or a metaphysical principle for our pondering,
or a divine sanction for our political agenda,
whether of the right or of the left.
We entomb God in a manageable hour on Sunday
and place guards on him
to make sure that he doesn’t get out.
These guards bear many names:
we call them
“what is reasonable,”
“what is practical,”
“what is realistic,”
“what is traditional,”
“what is up-to-date and enlightened.”

But on this most holy of nights
these guards are shaken with fear
and become like dead men.
This night confronts us
with the God who cannot be contained
in our Sunday morning hour,
the God who refuses to be domesticated,
the God who is wild and free
and will not be harnessed to any of our agendas,
or brought to heel by what we consider
reasonable or practical.

This wild God takes my agenda and tears it to shreds:
commands Abraham to sacrifice his son,
destroys the army of the Egyptians in the sea,
pours out his fury on his chosen people,
scattering them among the nations.

This wild God freely acts in ways
beyond my capacity to imagine or hope:
takes chaos and makes a world,
takes slaves and makes them free,
takes death and makes it life.

The God of this night draws us into his wildness:
taking our flesh to enliven it
and embracing our death to defeat it,
becoming himself the sacrificed son
whose offering reconciles us to God,
drowning us in the waters of baptism
to raise us up to life again.
On this night of nights,
God has broken out of
the one-hour, Sunday-morning tomb
in which we have sought to enclose him,
and, frankly, he has made a mess of our house.

We may think that we want a God who respects our agendas,
who acts in predicable and reasonable ways,
who obeys the guards whom we have posted,
but such a God could never be the God of Easter,
the God of life and freedom.
Such a God could only remain
trapped within the tomb of our expectations—
expectations that are so narrow,
so paltry,
so tailored to our idea of who we are
and how the world must be
and how a proper God should behave.
But the wild God of Easter rocks the earth
and breaks open the tomb.
The guards we have posted,
shaken with fear,
become like dead men,
and it becomes possible to imagine the world anew,
to hope for things that our agenda had excluded,
to ask questions that we had not dared ask before.

It is this wild, free, untamed God
who has broken into the lives
of our catechumen and our candidates,
perhaps unasked and unexpected,
making a mess of things in ways
that they may just now be beginning to suspect.
During our RCIA retreat at the beginning of Lent,
several of them commented on how much
Jesus’ words to his apostles in John’s Gospel—
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you”—
resonated with their experience,
their sense of surprise that they, of all people,
should have been chosen by God,
should find themselves here, tonight,
teetering on the edge of something as crazy
as living life as a Catholic Christian,
that heritage of saints who are forgiven sinners,
that vast and unruly collection of characters,
that ancient family made ever new
by children born of water, oil, bread, and wine.

For us gathered here tonight,
our catechumen and candidates
are an icon of what can happen
if we let God off the leash,
if we let the fears
and excuses
and rationalizations
that we place as guards
at the entrance of the tomb
faint away before the wildness of the risen Christ.
They show us the power of the Spirit of Jesus,
that blows where it will
and blows away our therapeutic
and metaphysical
and political agendas.
For us, too, the Spirit of the one
who raised Christ from the dead
has sent forth tremors
that have shaken with fear
the guards we have placed on our lives,
setting us free to live for God,
no longer slaves to sin and death.
For Christ is risen from the dead—
unleashed, wild, and free—
trampling down death by death,
and on those in the tomb
bestowing new life.

Easter Vigil

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; Matthew 28:1-10

“They went away from the tomb,
fearful yet overjoyed.”
And who can blame them,
encountering the fathomless mystery of God.

The first man and the first woman opened their eyes
to see displayed before them
the wondrous array of God’s creation,
and they heard the voice of God saying,
“Be fertile and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea,
the birds of the air,
and all the living things that move on the earth.”
They thought of the gift of life and freedom
that had been given to them,
and the call to tend the world
that had been entrusted to them,
and they stepped into paradise,
fearful yet overjoyed.

Moses stood on the edge of the Red Sea,
the song of victory still ringing in his ears:
“I will sing to the LORD,
for he is gloriously triumphant;
horse and chariot he has cast into the sea.”
He looked at the armies that had pursued them,
now covered by the waters;
he thought of the mysterious God
who had called him to lead his people
into the land promised to their ancestors,
and he turned to resume the journey,
fearful yet overjoyed.

The prophet Ezekiel heard the word of God:
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you
to cleanse you from all your impurities,
and from all your idols I will cleanse you.”
He felt the burden of the mission that had been given to him
of proclaiming to Israel that they were to abandon their idols,
to worship God alone –
the God who is holy mystery –
and he went to bear this word to his people,
fearful yet overjoyed.

Throughout the history of salvation
people have been caught up
in the terrifying yet joyful experience
of encountering the mystery of the living God,
of being called by the incomprehensible
and endlessly fascinating source of all life
into an ever-deeper immersion in the mystery that is God.
It is like the dizzying experience of falling in love:
it is an encounter that promises everything,
an encounter that changes everything,
an encounter that calls one to risk everything.

As the Sabbath turns into the week’s first day,
the women go to the place of the dead
where the one whom they had loved now lies entombed. 
But the tomb is open and an angel is there,
instructing them to bring to the disciples
the incredible message
that Jesus has been raised from the dead.
They go away from the tomb,
fearful yet overjoyed.

As they leave the tomb,
the women meet the risen Jesus himself.
They embrace his feet and worship him,
for in the risen one who has triumphed over death
they have encountered
the one who is the creative source of life itself,
the one who raised Israel from captivity in Egypt,
the one who spoke through the prophets,
the fathomless mystery of God.
They are fearful yet overjoyed
because now everything is different:
the old certainties of death and the grave
have been broken open
and they are faced with the dizzying prospect
of new lives that can mean more
than they could have ever imagined.
All they have to do is risk everything
and give their lives to the mission and the task
of proclaiming the good news of the resurrection.

And we too, here tonight,
should be fearful yet overjoyed
for we too have been called to risk everything
in giving our lives
to the mission and the task
of proclaiming the good news;
we too have been called to a new life
that is more than we could have ever imagined:
“We were indeed buried with him
through baptism into death,
so that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might live in newness of life.”
We celebrate the sacraments of initiation
in this night of resurrection
because it is through Baptism,
Confirmation,
and the Eucharist
that we, like those women,
have been called
to the fearful yet joyful task of being disciples
of the one who was crucified and raised;
it is in these sacred mysteries
that we encounter the living God
who promises everything,
who changes everything,
who calls us to risk everything.

But, in the end,
for us who are disciples of Jesus
joy must triumph over fear
just as life has triumphed over death;
for the living God whom we encounter at the empty tomb
is not a faceless mystery who speaks to us from the abyss.
God is the one whose enfolding love
has been revealed in the face of Jesus.
Fearful yet overjoyed,
we hear the mystery speak to us
in the voice of the risen one:
“Do not be afraid.”