He is risen, indeed!

The Easter Vigil

Romans 6:3-11 Death has no more power over him!
Luke 24:1-12 He is not here: he has been raised!

For some reason or other at Easter my mind turns back some years to when I was a very young man and caught up in the things that young men are caught up in, when on Saturday evening, a friend--a friend every bit as caught up in such things as I was, as we all were--mentioned that he had to go home early that night: tomorrow was Easter, and he had to go to Mass.  When we registered some surprise (I didn't even know he was Catholic!), he offered an interesting explanation: "You have to go to church on Easter," he said. "It's the day when you believe everything again."

I have to admit that I was, and still am, a little envious of my friend.  For every year since I have gone to Mass on Easter in part with the hope that I would be able to believe the whole thing again.  Not the part about Jesus being killed; it's too easy to believe in death.  Nor the part about his laying down his life for his friends; a good man--a really good man--might just do that.  No, what I need to believe is the truth--the rock-bottom truth of his resurrection.  For we live in a dark world, a world of violence, war, hatred, huger and wickedness.  Even our church can become very dark.  And there is an incredible need for a greater light--something greater than human hope and human good will, for we all know that these can be too, too easily snuffed out.  No, our world can be very dark--as dark as the night outside--and despite many centuries of human progress (and it is indeed progress) it does not seem to be getting any lighter.  For human creativity is remarkable, but so also is human darkness, and our capacity for it.  We have need of a greater light than we will ever find in ourselves.

That is why we gather in the darkness of the Easter vigil--to remember the too true truth of our darkness, of our sin,--and the promise of a greater light.  To remember that one of us, Jesus of Nazareth, a man powerful in word and deed, a man who loved our God even to the end, entrusted all to God in the face of the darkness-in the face of all the darkness that humanity could devise--denial, betrayal, mockery, physical torture, beating, flogging, humiliation, and crucifixion--all designed to kill him, and not just his body, but his spirit, his hope, his love of the Father, and not just his, but the spirit and the hope of his followers.

And he accepted it all and placed all in the hands of his Father, the Father who seemed so far away, trusting that God--God who alone is righteousness--would vindicate him, trusting that God who had claimed at his baptism as his Son and who affirmed him at his transfiguration could be trusted, that he would not let his beloved know destruction.  And he gave himself as he was--condemned as a criminal, as a blasphemer, as unclean--into the hands of his Father: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.  And he died.

Now, surrounded by darkness, we hear an astounding story, and we recall the characters.

These women went to the tomb.  Why?  Their faith had clearly been misplaced, their hope was crushed.  But they went out of love to do honor to a dishonored man.  And his body was not to be found.

And Peter, who had gambled all and lost, who had loved this Jesus with all his heart and who had promised to be with him to the end but found that he just could not do it--imagine him hearing this news--crazy news!--and the two reactions that must have welled up in his breast: Oh, my God!  Everything he told us!  and Oh my God, what have I done?


There is one other character to imagine: Jesus--Jesus who had given up all, who had lost all--his family and his friends, any decent human respect, the ministry he loved--for the sake of the message he understood.  He had laid it all down for his friends; that was his Father's will.  And it was awful.  But now in this new dawn it is all returned to him, but not for a moment but forever!  Death had robbed him of everything, but death has no power over him now.

This Jesus, who has been denied, who has been betrayed, who has been mocked, and flogged and crucified--but not just by them; no, by all of us!--this Jesus has been raised.

But there is more.

He lived his life for others; he lived his life for us to show us something about God that we could never know or believe or even really imagine on our own.  Something that is really beyond belief, really.  And that is that we have failed--truly failed--that our sins are real and they have real consequences.  But God knows that about us; he knows it now in his own flesh and blood, and he has chosen not to seek the vengeance that is his by right, nor to seek the justice he deserves, not even to give us the justice we abundantly deserve, but rather to forgive.

And this is the sign: Christ whom we crucified has been raised.  Everything he said about the Father is true.  He who was condemned as a blasphemer has been vindicated.

But he has not risen for himself--not he who lived for others!  No, even as he was born for us to show us the truth of God's humble love, even as he lived for us to show us that God is with us, even as he suffered for us to show us that God does not turn up his nose at our suffering, even as he died for us to show us that God would go even there--even to death itself--for us, so too he rose for us.

So that we might live no longer for ourselves but for him.

So that we might no longer live for today, but for ever.

So that we might no longer live in fear and darkness and sin and death--for that is our lot, we children of sad Eden--but that we might live again and finally in the light and truth and love of God.  For he never created us for destruction but for his love, by his love, of his very love.

Christ is risen, and our love--our love for God as limited as it may be, and our love for each other as faulty as it my be--our love is more precious in the eyes of the Father and his Son, our brother, than anything else.  He loves our love, and he asks us now, in light of all that he has experienced, to trust that.

For Christ Jesus is risen, and death has no more power over him!  Alleluia!  Amen!