The Great Vigil of Easter, April 8, 2023
Penelope Bridges
Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Well, we made it. We’ve come to the end of our Lenten journey, walked through the darkness of Holy Week, and now we’ve emerged into the bright light of Easter. I hope that at some point in the last week you were able to enter fully into the mystery, to feel the weight and tragedy of the Passion, to know your faith to be renewed and refreshed by God’s immeasurable love for you, decisively demonstrated by Jesus’ willingness to give himself for you.
This Great Vigil liturgy brings together a whole bundle of threads: we have listened to the glorious proclamation of this night in the Exsultet; we have heard the greatest hits of the Hebrew Scriptures; we have renewed the promises we made at our baptism while supporting our siblings in Christ as they were confirmed; and now we have heard the good news of resurrection. Alleluia indeed! In a few minutes we will share the first Eucharist of Easter, the gift Jesus left for his followers, the meal that recalls his story and brings us together as the body of Christ, created, redeemed, sustained and now living in hope of all that has been promised to us.
The Vigil is a work in four movements: proclamation, vigil, baptism, and Easter Eucharist. Yes, it’s long. But, as long as this service is tonight, in the early days of Christianity it was an all-night affair, with hours and hours of Scripture read throughout the night until just before dawn, when new Christians would be baptized and the Easter acclamation sounded as the first rays of sun came through the east window of the church.
The chanted Exsultet opens the liturgy, a proclamation of the uniqueness of this celebration. This is the night … three times we heard that refrain. THIS IS the night. Not WAS but IS. We don’t just remember and tell the story of the first Easter: we take ourselves back there; we re-imagine it; we experience it each year as if for the first time. How wonderful. How holy. How blessed is this night, a night unlike all other nights. All of creation is called to join us tonight in rejoicing: the heavenly hosts, all the round earth, all who have been a part of Mother Church through the ages. Because this is the victory of the one who breathed life into all things in heaven and on earth, and who, through the resurrection, makes all things new.
If you haven’t attended the Great Vigil before you might have been surprised by the series of readings we heard from the Hebrew Scriptures. These are some of the most critical chapters in the story of God and God’s people: Creation, Liberation, Renewal, the restoration of life: these are the pillars of our faith, and a common thread runs through them. Each of the Vigil stories we read mentions the breath of God, sometimes translated Spirit or wind, but all using the same original term. In the beginning the breath of God swept across the void, and God’s spoken word brought all things into being. At the Red Sea, God’s breath held back the waters for Israel to pass through on dry ground. The prophet Ezekiel declares that God promises to breathe new life into us; that God will breathe life back into a community that is seemingly not only dead but dry as dust.
This series of readings offers an extended meditation on the power of the breath/spirit/wind of the creator. Scripture has a way of calling our attention to something very ordinary and guiding us to the realization that it is sacred. Water becomes the medium of baptism. Bread becomes the body of Christ. And breath – breath is something we take for granted, until we don’t have enough of it. If we had to think about each breath we take, we wouldn’t last very long, just a few minutes at best. I read recently that the actress Kate Winslet held her breath under water for over 7 minutes when shooting scenes for the movie Avatar: The Way of Water. Try doing that – I’ll start a timer and let you know when 7 minutes have passed – provided I’m still preaching in seven more minutes!
God speaks or breathes or blows and life is created, ended, saved, renewed. This liturgy is a celebration of life, breath, spirit: the source of creation, the source of the new fire (which will not burn without a breath of air), the source of our life as the covenant people of God.
After the Vigil readings came baptism: our rebirth through the water of death to a new way of life. When the Bishop blessed the water in the baptismal font a few minutes ago, she summarized the rich symbolism of water: over it the Holy Spirit moved; through it God led the children of Israel out of Egypt; in it Jesus himself was baptized; and then, for the water of baptism: in it we are buried with Christ in his death; by it we share in his resurrection; through it we are reborn in the Spirit. Water is life; but don’t forget that water can also mean death. Just as the Egyptians were once drowned so that God’s people could reach freedom, so our old life is drowned so that we can start over, freed forever from the fear of death.
And the fourth movement of this magnificent liturgy is the first Eucharist of Easter, this great and glorious thanksgiving for the salvation that God has wrought through Christ in us. St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Christians in Rome that Death no longer has dominion, any sway, over us, just as it no longer has any power over Christ. We are liberated from the most fundamental fear. And so we make Eucharist in gratitude and celebration of this awesome gift: the gift of breath, the gift of Spirit, the gift of new life as God’s children.
If you attended all the liturgies of Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday as well as tonight you might have noticed that there was no dismissal at the end of each service, because the church sees the whole series as a single liturgy. Tonight’s liturgy has a dismissal, with extra alleluias; but the Gospel also provides a dismissal. Jesus tells his disciples: “Go to Galilee: there [you] will see me.”
Go to Galilee: this is the instruction we hear from the risen Christ. Don’t sit around at an empty tomb, wondering what just happened; imitate that vast army in Ezekiel’s valley: breathe in God’s Spirit, stand up, and live. Go to Galilee, the place where Jesus first lived and moved and had his being. Move forward to the place in our world where Jesus is teaching, healing, loving. Recreate his ministry here, where we are, in this time and place. Go and tell what you have witnessed through the love of Christ. Go and tell of the love that conquers death. Go and tell the world, “Alleluia, Christ is risen!”
