April 23, 2011

O God, as we celebrate the resurrection of your Son this night, we pray that, like the women at the tomb, we may encounter him in the proclamation of the word and at the Eucharistic feast. Amen

I remember well the first Easter vigil I ever attended. It was in Newburyport, MA and it was on a cold March night. In fact the weather that holy week was very much like the weather we’ve had this week. There was snow on Palm Sunday as I recall and although it warmed up through the week, Holy Saturday was chilly as well. What I remember most about that service, beside the wonderful readings, was the end. We were at St. Paul’s Church on Newburyport’s High Street, not far from downtown, but really in an area of the street that was dominated by Federalist mansions and a mix of nineteenth and early twentieth century commercial buildings. I remember that Fr. Cramer threw open the doors of the church at the end of the service and shouted loudly into the street—Christ is Risen!

I’m not sure anyone but us noticed that evening. It was a typical Saturday night in a New England town. If anyone was driving by on the High Street, they were either going to or coming from work, or coming home from a normal Saturday night’s activities, or perhaps, and more likely, traveling from one place to drink to another—in that respect, Massachusetts is not unlike Wisconsin.

Fr. Cramer’s gesture was the sort of futile, wry, somewhat ironic, in-your-face act that I’ve come to enjoy performing myself as a priest. There’s something about a collar that brings just a little bit of the ham out in me. It’s not that I don’t take it seriously. I do, but I also want to remind people not to take me, or the call, or the Christian faith, for that matter, too seriously.

There’s a sense in which this evening we are all doing something of that. No matter how powerful and meaningful the rituals of the Easter Vigil, they are so profoundly counter-cultural that we participate in them somewhat self-consciously, and defiantly.

Still, what we have done so far tonight, and what we will in the later part of the service connects us with the traditions of our past going back centuries, even millennia. We have heard the story of God’s mighty acts in history. We have heard how God saved God’s people in flood and exodus. We have heard God’s promises of deliverance in the midst of personal and national disaster. That great thread of salvation history has now combined with the events of Holy Week that we have reenacted over the past few days. We have once again walked with Jesus to Golgotha and watched as his broken body was laid in the tomb.

And now, on the third day, we rejoice in his resurrection, in God’s victory over death and over the forces of evil.  We proclaim Christ is risen, that everything has changed and been made new, but at the same time, around us in this city, people go about the regular routines of a Saturday night, not knowing, or even noticing that everything has changed.

We live in a world in which Easter has become just another commercial opportunity—a time for card sellers and candy companies to roll out season-specific products to entice buyers. I was in the Metcalfe’s this week and saw a sign in one of the aisles that encouraged people to make their seasonal purchases, helpfully reminding us that the First Night of Passover was April 18 and Easter was the 24^th. The cynicism of that sign surprised me—for who would need to buy food in preparation for the first night of Passover if they didn’t already know the date? The same is true of Easter, I suppose—why would one want to buy an Easter ham if they had no idea of the date of Easter?

We are so out of step with our culture in so many ways, but I think that there is no moment for us when that becomes so clear as at this great service, the Great Vigil of Easter. It’s not just that the wider culture has no clue what’s going on here tonight, most devout Christians are clueless as well. Most Christians, most Episcopalians, I would wager that most of the people that will be sitting in these pews have never been to an Easter vigil service, and many of them, even long-time Grace members, may not even know that we are here tonight.

We are counter-cultural. We are doing things tonight that are completely outside the box for most of our culture, for most Americans. And we ought to be asking ourselves, “why?” On one level, the answer to that question is quite simple—because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. But on another level, each of our actions and statements tonight press the question harder, everything from the moment that flint and steel ignited a spark, through the words that I am saying, and yes as we go on to baptize Eleanor and celebrate the first Eucharist of the resurrection, everything we do presses on us the question, “why?”

It’s a question I daresay none of us can answer satisfactorily, for our selves or for others, but our actions and our words, however self-conscious, uncertain, and tentative, do proclaim the resurrection.

There’s something quite interesting in the gospel stories of the resurrection—we never quite see it happen. We don’t know what happened. Matthew comes closest to opening the curtain on the resurrection. He describes an earthquake, an angel who comes down from heaven to roll away the stone. The angel sits, terrifies the guards, and then speaks to the women. We don’t even know if they witnessed these miraculous events. More importantly, Matthew provides no description of Jesus’ resurrection—we don’t know if it had taken place before the angel arrived and rolled away the stone, or after. It’s left unclear.

What we do have are traces of resurrection—an empty tomb, a stone rolled away, guards addled and terrified by the events, and women, who having received the message, run quickly and joyously to tell the others what has happened. We also have an appearance of the risen Christ to the women as they run. In awe and love, they bow at his feet and worship him.

What we do have are traces, foretastes of resurrection, in our lives and in our world. They may be easy to miss, easily misinterpreted, often overlooked. But even in the midst of all that we experience day-to-day, the grind of daily life, of work and errands and chores, there are traces and foretastes of resurrection all around us.

That’s why we are here tonight. We see such traces and foretastes in all of our actions and words—in the lighting of new fire, the singing of the exsultet, but above all, in a few minutes as we baptize Eleanor into Christ and renew our baptismal vows, and yes, at the Eucharistic feast, where we unite with Christ’s body across the ages and throughout the world, to taste his body and blood and to become his body in the world. In doing that we show forth resurrection life in a dying world. In all these ways we experience and proclaim resurrection faith and resurrection life. Let us go forth this night to proclaim the joyous news: Alleluia. Christ is Risen!