The Great Vigil of Easter 2022

Many people have trouble visualizing how Easter begins in the night. Popular American culture has always associated the rising sun with the rising Christ, and I remember how when I was a child, sunrise services were very popular. These days one does not hear about sunrise services anymore, and if a church does have a sunrise service, it most likely is an Episcopal Church doing the Easter Vigil beginning at 5:00 in the morning.

Ideally the Easter Vigil is done in the night as we are doing. The sun should have completely set. Every year I check to see when sunset actually is on the Eve of Easter. It is tempting to cheat, commencing the service while there is still light out. People claim they have a hard time coming late at night to the church, but we also know from the Christmas Midnight Mass that crowds will come to church late at night. Thus, here we are in the church, well after sunset, gathering for the first mass of Easter.

We are told in the Gospel of Saint Luke that the women came with spices to the tomb at early dawn. Early dawn is truly early. The sun would barely be up if it was up at all. Jesus is nowhere to be found, having been resurrected sometime in the middle of the night. The timing of the Easter Vigil seeks to celebrate the rising of Christ when it was actually to have happened – at some point after sunset when most were at home comfortably sleeping.

We are reminded that the Easter story is the central creation story of God. Tonight, we heard the creation narrative from Genesis – how God moved over the earth creating everything. That story points to the resurrection stories. When on Good Friday death had overwhelmed the world, and on Holy Saturday when Jesus Christ descended into the abyss to rescue Adam and Eve, it is at this time of darkness that Jesus Christ re-emerges into the world, like the spirit moving over the waters of the Genesis story, creating a new world through his risen life. When the sun began to rise, the women would then discover the new life that was being composed by Jesus Christ.

This night is a testament to the fact that the cross and the empty tomb stand at the center of all time, and every event ever known to the world emanates out from the cross and the resurrection. The Genesis story is to be understood as a story that illumines the work of the creating Christ on this night. When Eastertide ends with the glorious feast of Pentecost, the spirit that is poured out over the church and the world is the continuing work of God that was begun this very night.

The element of surprise is fantastic on this night. Most of the world has no idea what is happening during this time. Many are asleep, some are at home watching uninspiring television, some are having to work the night shift. People are busy doing a multitude of things. In the background of all that, whether at the first Easter or tonight, Jesus is at work resurrecting the world. When tomorrow morning comes, the news will have spread that Jesus is alive, and some shall be afraid, and others will be feeling exhilaration.

It is wonderful that all of you are here tonight. You are here for the major resurrection moment of our faith. As Christ has been resurrected, you have now heard some of the stories of our salvation – the creation, the flood, the Exodus, the new creation – and following this sermon we shall bless water to renew our baptismal promises – a personal resurrection for each of us in regard to our faith.

More importantly, during this night of nights during this week of weeks, we gather to feast on the Risen Christ. Here we share the bread and wine, the mass, that which is the central sign of our faith as well as the major symbol for the world of the death and rising of Christ. Every Eucharist transports us to the cross and the sepulcher. As Jesus’ body was broken, and his blood was shed, we now feast on that body and blood of our Lord. Every mass is an Easter feast.

Finally, as Jesus rose from the dead in the silence of the night, and as Jesus redeems the world while the cosmos is darker than dark, beware that Jesus comes to each of us this night to resurrect our very lives. As we have witnessed, God works in surprising ways. God surprised us by becoming human in Jesus, God surprised us in dying on a cross, God surprised us by rising to life this very night, and God will surprise each of us personally as the Spirit of Christ renovates our lives.

And this brings us to an important point that is so obvious and yet so easily forgotten. Christ is forever creating new life, and the Christian faith is about our very lives have this new life of Christ. Amidst all of the death in the world, Christ always comes to gives us life. On the darkest day of history, Good Friday, God still brought about life through Jesus Christ. By extension, there is nothing that can happen in our own lives that can extinguish the potential for Christ to give us new life. Even when we face death, we are given the gift of new life beyond the grave.

On this very night of nights, life is resurrected for all of us. A blessed Easter feast to each of you and may Christ work wonders within your own lives this Easter.

Father Paul Lillie +