Easter Vigil

22 March 2008

Year A - RCL

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

Tonight's liturgy is primitive and striking. It begins in a darkened church where a fire is struck and the Easter candle lit. It continues with the gradual lighting of the church and then the telling of the story of the first People of God, Israel. In that story, we learn of the gradual infusion of the light of God into the darkness of human sin, a story that begins in creation and continues through the history of Israel even down to our own day.

In the process of telling this story, we learn about ourselves, how we were made by God, how we drifted away from God and what God has done to reclaim us. But we also learn something about God. No surprise there; it is his story and we are the agents of its telling.

Of God tonight it can well and truly be said three things:

He made us to be somebody when we were nobody

He feeds us with himself, giving us life that is of his very own.

He washes and cleanses us when we wander far from him.

We were nobody. In Egypt, the nation of Israel was less than nobody, they were slaves. God inspired and led a revolt and the greatest escape of all great escapes, the Exodus across the Red Sea. A tiny scrap of people took on and bested the great nation of Egypt. They became somebody, because God was on their side.

We were hungry. In ancient times, unlike our society now, our ancestors lived in a culture where there was genuine physical hunger. They had to worry about starvation, we have to worry about getting too fat and clogging our arteries with the result of rich living. And yet, we still hunger. We hunger for that which gives us real meaning, for that which makes us feel wanted and loved and cared about. The thing which can feed us is love. And in the passion of Christ we see love at its deepest, broadest, and highest. We see and know love which burns right to the point of death. We come to know a God who loves us enough to die for us. And he gives us himself to feed upon.

We were dirty. The human situation is a situation of sin and failure. God is one who gives us new hope by taking us time and time again back to the waters and washing us with new life. There is no such thing as permanent failure, there is only sustained forgiveness. The waters of life flow through eternity.

A people created and sustained God. A people renewed and forgiven. A people fed and washed. Of such a nature we are and of such a nature is the God who created, redeemed and sustains us.

To that God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be honor and glory now and forever. Amen.