Easter Vigil 2008

"Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Ash Wednesday

Over the chaos of the empty waters, hovered the spirit, This Evening

bringing forth creation.

So from the empty tomb the Second Adam issued triumphant.

By the same spirit, we regenerated

into the body of our risen Savior,

seek, through the power of the new creation, life everlasting

By the same Spirit we are called to worship God our Creator,

Savior, Sanctifier,

(whose) glory in both earth and heaven, is manifested.

(Hymnal 176-7)

“It takes a lifetime of awareness to realize

that what is standing before you is GOD.”

We have talked together on our Lenten journey, about God’s presence.

Tonight, around the Vigil flame,

we have celebrated God’s presence in the stories of creation:

Reciting the words of our ancestors, who first met YHWH of Israel in the garden, in the Exodus, in sacrifice, in war, in death,

and in the hope of a new world.

Earlier in the journey, we told stories of our Christian ancestors,

Of Lazarus who sat up and walked out of his earthen tomb -

Lazarus, a child of Earth – as are we.

Of the Man born blind, to whom Jesus restored his vision

A child of Light, who once was blind, but now can see.

Of Nicodemus, who learned of the Spirit which blows where it will,

A child of the Wind, which comes from where nobody knows,

and where it’s going, all God’s children go.

Of the Samaritan Woman who asked Jesus for the running water

A Child washed clean of sin, in Water welling up to eternal life.

Earth, Fire, Wind, Water – Of these elemental things God created the heavens, the earth and all that is in them” out of deep chaos.

They are gifts native Americans and other early peoples consider first recognized as the gifts of the Great Spirit.

The necessities for all of human life, for all of us, God’s children

Earth, fire, wind, water –

The lights in the heavens, the water and earth beneath them,

the Wind of the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters.

Earth, Fire, Wind, Water – The universal elements out of which

God created human beings and called us good.”

Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water – those elemental presences of God in all life.

God’s universal location.

Earth, fire, wind and water – those particular things in our daily lives –

“The memorial garden, our vigil fire, the breath within each of us,

a glass of cool, clear water,

Places in which, if we look, we will see God, the creator standing before us.

To those elemental realities the Holy Week journey adds two human experiences:

First, Chaos – from which all was created.

Chaos - a word that we can use to describe many of those particular happenings of which Jack spoke last evening in his sermon.

So much outside this chancel’s holy, timeless, space – seems chaotic and senseless.

Chaos, from which God, on Good Friday, began to RE-create the world.

Chaos, the place we find ourselves when we forget, as we so often do

about the second experience,

The Journey.

The Journey – God walking before us over the Red Sea,

Jesus walking before us on the Way of Cross

Journey – the movement through life

which each of us begins the day we are born,

the path on which we walk all the way to our human death.

Journey – the path Jesus walked in our human body from his birth in Bethlehem, to his death on Golgotha.

Yesterday, Good Friday evening, this place was empty

Love – Life – God, hung on a tree, God was dead, and we buried him,

We laid him in a tomb put a heavy grate over its opening,

and this Church became empty of life.

Empty of all that makes life possible, of all that makes life holy.

EMPTY

Empty: Of food, - the Pascal Sacrament consumed,

the dishes washed and put away

Empty-of water –holy water poured on the ground –

bottles and cruets and vases back on the shelf

Empty--of light& fire – The Candles gone – the other lights put out.

Empty: Of earthly, human made life and beauty

(Flowers, silver, linen, books, music - ALL GONE)

No sacrament, no crosses, no icons – no God symbols,

only an altar draped in the black of deep mourning.

Empty, lifeless, devoid of God’s presence.

There remained here only the Wind of God that blows where it will –

Blowing through our dark emptiness, over the quiet streets of Mercerville,

Brooding . . . as at the beginning of creation.

***********

This great Easter fire, the Vigil flame, burns also at the beginning and the end of human life.

At funerals and at Baptisms,

it assures us that though we have come from earth,

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

we have come also from the breath of God,

and we will, through earth fire, wind and water, journey back to God.

“Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to Eternal Life.”

God’s Eternal Life, the Resurrection Morning, the New Creation,

will be formed of the Earth, Fire, Wind and Water eternally surrounding all of us.

Yet God also builds the Resurrection out of the particular happenings of our lives.

Tonight’s Vigil flame is our Fire for this Easter Eve,

It flames for Christ’s new life given to Simon and Theo in Baptism,

It shines for Jack’s and my final Easter as your priests.

It burns for the members of the Confirmation Class

and for those who have been born and who died during the past year.

Yet it is also a part of God’s eternal fire, the light and power for every new creation, for each new day,

for all the human journey yet to come,

and for the life of the whole created universe.

It takes a lifetime of awareness to recognize

that what is standing before you is God.

It takes a lifetime of awareness to know recognize

that what is blowing through you is God

“It takes a lifetime of awareness to know

that what is living within you is God.”

It takes a lifetime of awareness to know that

the One walking before you is God.

It takes a lifetime of Easters to know

that the fire burning before us is the Eternal, Elemental, Creation and

Resurrection Power of God, for each of us, and for all creation.

Holy Father, accept our evening sacrifice, the offering of this candle in your honor.

May it shine continually to drive away all darkness.

May Christ, the morning star who knows no setting, find it ever burning –

Christ who gives life to all creation, and who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Amen