The
Great Paschal Vigil
The
Rev'd James Ross Smith
&
Solemn First Mass of Easter April 7, 2007
Genesis
1:1-2:2;
Exodus
14:10-15:1;
Ezekiel
36:24-28; Zephaniah 3:12-20
Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10
Alleluia.
Christ is risen!
It
is good to leave the city, any city, and to go, if only for a
time, where there is no neon, no bright lights, to go where you
can see and feel and breathe the night. To let the velvet blackness
touch and hold you; to look up and see light and darkness
— clearly, separate, and balanced. God said, “Let there be light”;
and there was light. And God saw that the light was
good, and that it was beautiful; and God separated the
light from the darkness. “God called the light day, and the darkness
He called night.” God made night. God made darkness. The psalmist
sings: “God my king is from of old, working salvation in the midst
of the earth…yours is the day, yours also the night; you established
the moon and the sun” [Psalm 74].
So
why do we fear the dark? It's a silly question, of course: we
fear the unknown that lurks under the bed, in the closet, in the
basement. Any child can tell you that such shadowy, hidden, creatures
never wish us well. We hate everything that sneaks up on us, that
leaps out of the dark to seize us and take us down. The psalmist
knows all about that kind of fear. From the Forty-first Psalm,
“They say, ‘a deadly thing has fastened upon him; he will not
rise again from where he lies' ”; from Psalm 104, “It is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep forth”; and, from Psalm
91, “The pestilence that stalks in darkness, the destruction that
wastes at noonday,” the destruction that turns day into night
in the wink of an eye. We know these creatures, do we not? We've
felt them leap out at us, all-too-real, to grab, and seize and
clutch: the phone call, the sick friend, the divorce, the diagnosis,
the hospice, the sentence, the judgment, the argument, the layoff,
the disappointment, the emergency room, the failure, the rejection
— the bad, bad news. In the face of such terrors some would say:
“Steel yourself, stand firm, be strong, be a man, dig deep, and
deeper still, don't believe in anyone, don't trust anyone, because,
at the end of the day, you can only trust yourself.” The gospel
of self-reliance is widely preached in this New World of ours,
but it is not the gospel. It is not good news.
We
begin tonight in darkness — and then “there is light”
and “it is good,” and it is very good. It is beautiful,
this new light, this new fire: it pierces the darkness and we
praise God for creation, and the gift of light; and we praise
God for bringing Israel out of bondage, leading the people with
a pillar of fire; and, most of all, we praise God, and we thank
Him, for sending us His Son, the one who is light, the
very Light of the world, the one whose death and resurrection
gives birth to a new creation. We light new fire because
the Lord has crossed over from death to life and He has made it
possible — joyfully, gloriously, possible — for us to
follow him through the sea and the desert of sin and death to
a new life, both now, and with him eternally in the resurrection;
and how wonderful it is to follow the glorious symbol of his presence
among us as risen and exalted Lord: this light, this candle, that
pierces the darkness and stills our fears; this burning light
that reminds us that we are joined to Him and to each other, united
to Him as His Body, so we can share His life, His courage, His
strength, His grace, His glory; this guiding light that reminds
us of what we feared to believe and so often forget: that we were
created in God's image and that, through our Lord's death and
resurrection, and through the baptism that we share, we have been
made a new creation — brothers and sisters, heirs of the Kingdom,
and, by the grace of God, partakers of the divine nature”[2 Peter
1:4]. How glorious it is to gather in darkness and to “fear no
evil,” to know that God has conquered the terrors of the night,
and is conquering them still. How glorious it is to come to this
holy place, having admitted our weaknesses and our failures, to
renew our vows and our commitments, to be nourished by our Lord's
Body and Blood, so we can learn to face our fears and endure our
burdens, knowing that we need not rely on our own strength alone,
but also on His; and we pray that we may be for each other, and
for our brothers and sisters in the world, both a symbol and a
source of his saving strength and his unquenchable light.
The
angel at the tomb tells the holy women, “Do not be afraid” [Matthew
28:10]. That is the gospel; that is the good
news. Tonight we learn to say, once again, “God is light and in
Him is no darkness at all”[1 John 1:5].
“Christ
is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon
those in the tombs bestowing life.” –The Paschal Troparion
Alleluia.
Christ is risen!
Copyright
© James Ross Smith
