Easter Vigil, Yr. B; April 7, 2012
Romans 6:3-11; Mark 16:1-8
Sermon preached at The
Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene
Keep your eye on the
cross, a figure made up of two lines intersecting at right angles … one line
horizontal, the other vertical.
The cross represents the intersection of the created order and the
divine. We live in the created
world, a world bound by linear time.
Events in our lives take place one after another. We are born. We grow into toddlerhood. We learn to smile and eat and talk and run and play. We grow into adults and start our own
families. We are not the same from
one day to the next. We are
constantly changing. Once a day
has go by, we cannot go back and reclaim it. It is done. We grow into things. We live in chronos,
linear time.
God’s time is different
than our time. God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. God sees all time in an instant … our
birth at the same time as our death … the beginning of the cosmos at the same
time as our sun’s supernova. God’s
time is kyros. In the image of the cross, we seethe fullness of time, the
points when kyros and chronos intersect.
The places where God’s time intersects our time.
One of those points of
intersection occurred in Jesus. In
Jesus, the people of his day were able to experience the fullness of God
through him. Through their witness
and writings, that experience was shared across regions and across time. Because of that witness, we are
able to share in that experience two thousand years after it took place. We remember it in community on nights
like this night.
This is the night when God
turned the tables on death and destruction. This is the night when Jesus was liberated from the
seclusion of the tomb to live among us forever. This is a night we remember, not as one looking back on a
photograph in someone else’s album, but
as a people looking back on our own
lived history, in much the same way as our Jewish brothers and sisters
experience Passover. In their
Seder meal, they re-member their
salvation story … the story of their slavery in Egypt, the last plague, the
fear of that last night, the cries of the first born struck down in the dark,
their flight before Pharaoh’s army, their mad dash through the Red Sea to
safety, God’s saving power. They
remember it not as progeny looking back, but as participants in those events … as people who lived that experience. That salvation story is their own salvation story because they lived it in God. The Israelites’ escape to freedom is their escape to freedom. They are freed because in that moment they existed in God’s
time, a time that sees everything at once. God could see them in their ancestor’s future. In God, they were already alive. They were there
… standing at that fullness at the intersection of the created world and the
divine … as Christians, we might say they were standing at a cross.
This is the night we do
much the same thing. We celebrate
our Christian Passover. This is
the night we celebrate Jesus’ crossing from death to new life in the fullness
of God. This is the night when Christ
broke the bonds of death and rose victorious from the grave. This
is the night in the tradition of the early church when catechumenates were
brought forward to be baptized.
This is the night when they were stripped of their clothes, and their
naked bodies were washed clean in the baptismal waters, and they were baptized
into Christ Jesus. Their lives became intertwined in the
life of Jesus like two young trees whose trunks grow around one
another.[1] Their lives became
inseparable from that of Jesus’ … for all time. On this night chronos and kyros meet again and
grow together, and we are present
to that mystery through our own baptism.
We … with those first disciples … have become entwined in the life of
Christ. This is the night when
earth and heaven are joined and humanity is reconciled to God.
We experience that joining
every week when we share in communion.
At the Maundy Thursday meal, Michael asked us to think about that aspect
of our tradition. To think about
how we might describe the experience of holy communion to someone who wasn’t
familiar with our Episcopal service.
We had a few minutes of silence to think, and then people began to
speak. First one stood up and then
another and another. I was
surprised that so many wanted to speak.
We’re usually such a shy bunch when it comes to sharing our stories,
when it comes to testimony … but not that night. I heard about “joining in the mystery”, about feet planted
firmly in on the floor and hands reaching across the altar rail, “crossing the
veil” into the world of the divine.
I heard about a community gathered, and a refusal to leave the table
where we are each fed as beloved children of God. So many were able to speak about this experience …
passionately … honestly … humbly … faithfully. It made me realize how deeply we are each touched by the
mystical quality of the table, the bread and the wine. This is the night that transformed the
Last Supper from a sorrowful last meal filled with disillusionment and
confusion to a Eucharist, a feast of thanksgiving. This is a night when kyros breaks into chronos.
At our communion, we
experience that deep connectedness of the Church with God across time. We gather as community, living and
dead, past and present, young and old, saints and sinners, rich and poor, happy
and sad … and witness the tremendous diversity that has been grafted together
by the love of God through baptism.
We stand together as Christ’s own forever; entwined with one another
forever!
All this sounds great in a
perfect world, but we all know our world is far from perfect. Our economy is slowly recovering … but
many are still out of work. Our
city school system is struggling to meet the many needs of the children who
show up. The poverty rate in the
city and county is rising, and food and gas prices go up and up and up. There’s a lot we could worry about in
our world, but not this night.
This is the night when we are reminded that we can be made whole in a
broken world, because resurrection trumps suffering and death. This is the night when we stand
together in love, reminded that sacrifices made for others bind us more closely
in communion and embody compassion.
Sacrifices offered freely are not forgotten. This is the night when we stand together in faith, reminded
of God’s unbridled generosity … in the act of creation, in acts of liberation,
in the gift of communion, in the prospect of shared salvation, in the light of
resurrection. This is the night
when the Church is brought to life once again.
What will we do in
response to the wonder and mystery of God’s breaking in on us this night? When we walk away, what will we take
with us? What will we have to
offer to others? Whose burden can
we lighten? Whose tears can we
dry? Whose faith will we allow to
strengthen our own? Whose passion
will light a fire within us? Whose
face will reveal the light of God?
Whose sorrow will break us open for blessing? Whose suffering will compel us to act? Whose story will we find woven in our
own? Whose heart will touch us in
love? Whose child will we hold in
our arms? We are baptized into
Christ … brothers and sisters.
This is the night we are called into One. This is the night we keep our eye on the cross and leap into
the world in hope. Alleluia, my
friends! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!
Amen.
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