THE GREAT VIGIL OF EASTER, 2003

EXODUS 14:10-15:1

EZEKIEL 36:24-28

ROMANS 6:3011

MATTHEW 28:1-10

Sermon - April 19, 2003

Easter is the celebration of all celebrations for Christians. If Christ was never raised from the dead, no one would ever have heard of him today, never mind celebrate his birthday or remember the day of his execution.

Baptism is the sacrament of all sacraments for Christians: the one by which a person, of whatever age, becomes a Christian, accepts God’s invitation to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and starts on the road to a transformed life that can, by the grace of God, lead to eternal life.

So it was that in the early years of the Christian Church, the first service of Easter was the ultimate time for baptisms. The Great Vigil of Easter, which we experience tonight, is in fact a radically scaled-down version of a service which began in the Church in Jerusalem in the Fourth Century as an “all-nighter.”

The Great Vigil in those days included a long series of readings from the Old Testament interspersed with sermons, with baptisms at dawn on Easter morning. (I promise you this won’t last that long!). At the baptisms, the candidates (most of whom were adults or teenagers) faced west (where it was still dark) when the bishop asked them to renounce “Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God”, “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God”, and “all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God.”

Then the bishop asked the candidates, “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?” and they would literally turn around 180° and face east, where the dawn was breaking over Jerusalem, and say “I do”. And where they were standing was right next to the Empty Tomb of Jesus Christ, where the Resurrection happened.

I will ask the same questions of Julian’s parents and godparents tonight, and while they won’t be facing west, or turn around, or be washed by the dawn’s early light, or be next to the Empty Tomb, the commitment is the same and there is the same infinite spiritual potential in this new child of God as in any other.

And as in Jerusalem, there is also the living reality of a community of faith, for Julian’s parents and godparents do not make commitments in isolation; as with every baptism, the congregation makes commitments also. “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support this person in his life in Christ?” I will ask, and mean it. If we did not say “we will”, we would have no need for nursery care, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, user-friendly services for children, Youth Group, Confirmation Class, Adult Bible study, “Inreach”, Women’s Link, Men’s Spiritual Growth Group, fellowship, retreats – well, really, for everything we do here.

But we do say “we will,” and we mean it. This is part of living the Easter life, receiving joy, guidance and love from Jesus Christ and multiplying them by sharing them.

We are part of the continuing miracle of Easter. Christ being raised to new, glorious, indestructible life was just the beginning; Jesus’ faithful followers in every century and on every continent are what Paul Harvey would call “the rest of the story.”

And the story hasn’t stopped.

How do we live the story ourselves, today? Let us read together one version of our “marching orders”, in a prayer attributed to someone who definitely did live the Easter life. It is found in the red Book of Common Prayer near the top of page 833.

Let us read together a prayer attributed to St. Francis: “Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be

understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For

it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church