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Sermon at the Great Vigil of Easter, April 23, 2011
Grace Cathedral, Topeka, Kansas
By the Right Reverend Dean E. Wolfe, D.D., Ninth Bishop of Kansas
Good God! Christ is risen!
In the name of the Risen Christ. Amen.
Oh, tonight is such a sweet, sweet feast. Tomorrow, everyone will come to hear the news, but tonight, well tonight, you heard it first.
Good God!
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Tonight, we celebrate “the ultimately decisive event for human history and not merely something spectacular that happened to Jesus.” 1
As a result of the Resurrection, everyone we’ve ever lost, every death we’ve ever mourned, everyone who has ever been taken from us, is promised back. Death will not separate us forever from the ones we love.
And I doubt you truly appreciate the magnitude of what has been accomplished in the event we celebrate this night.
I doubt you comprehend its depth, its breadth, its world-shattering nature, its breath-taking magnitude, its sheer audacity. I doubt you understand it, because I’ve been preaching about it for 29 years and I haven’t begun to comprehend its immensity or its astonishing joy. And I have never come close to explaining it adequately, not once, in 29 sincere attempts.
Tonight, by the power of God, the dead are raised and death has no power over us. And explaining this cosmic shift in reality is no easy task.
In the Resurrection of Christ, the laws of the universe are shattered. If a dead man can break free from his tomb, then all bets are off!
So, this is no moment for theological niceties. We won’t try to calculate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin tonight. “Was his tomb empty or did it only appear to be empty?” We are way past those old arguments.
No, this won’t be a staid, scholarly presentation, because we are in a right-down-to-it sort of moment. Simply put, either he did, or he didn’t. Either he is, or he isn’t. Either we do, or we don’t.
This story begins with the subtlety of an earthquake and an angel of the Lord descending from heaven who, with angelic strength, rolls back the stone blocking the tomb and then sits on top of it, as if to say, “Go ahead. Top this.”
I should be forcibly removed from this pulpit if I try to explain away this amazing story. You have my permission to yell out in protest if I try to explain the nuances of the Greek. This story is intended to smack you upside the head.
In the paradox of God, it isn’t meant to be explained. It is meant to be believed, and to be lived into.It is meant to call upon our constant astonishment.
This is a story that is meant, finally, to wrestle your suspended judgment to the ground until you cry, “Enough!”
“Resurrection faith does not arise on the basis of evidence, of which the chief priests and soldiers had plenty, but (first,) on the experienced presence of the risen Christ, (second), by (the) testimony of those before whom he appeared, and, (third,) by his own continuing presence among his disciples." 2
Jesus was dead. He was not just the-first-afternoon-dead. He was not just next-day-dead. He was three-days-dead, cold-in-the-grave dead, friends-and-family-weeping dead – and yet he arose out of that wrecked tomb victorious over sin and the grave. Allsin. Everygrave.
If death has been conquered, do you think there is anything God c annot do? Do you think God can’t save everyone from eternal death? Do you think God wouldn’t want to? Do you think when Christ comes again in glory that anyone endowed with the gift of free will would exercise it to say, “No, thank you” to his compelling invitation?
Don’t you think it is in keeping with his scandalous inclusivity and his loving nature that people of every religious tradition (or none at all) would be given one final opportunity on the last day, having been in the presence of the cosmic Christ, to become one with him?
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. The Resurrection changes everything!
Remember how the liturgy began with the story of creation, a story that frames what follows by first reminding us that we are God’s creation from before time and forever.
Then we heard the story of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea, when God saves his sorry people and commands Moses to take on the mighty Pharaoh, and tell him, “Let my people go.”
Next, the prophet Isaiah tells the people about God’s invitation to the abundant life. “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters….I will make you an everlasting Covenant….Seek the Lord while he may be found…”
Ezekiel tells the story of being brought out into a valley of dry bones which, he is told, represents the whole house of Israel.
“Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off completely.”But God responds by saying, “I will put my spirit within you and you shall live.”
So, in summary: God created us. Saved us. Promised us. Restored us. Each of these stories acts like a foundational building block, one placed on top of another until we come to the keystone, theresurrectedChrist, that stone that stands at the top of an arch and allows all the other stones to stand; the stone that, in this case, makes all the other stones relevant in the first place.
Why does this Resurrection mean so much to us? Why is it the keystone?
It means that the very thing we fear most is nothing to be feared. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid.” The Resurrection means we can stop living our lives worrying and fretting and trying to hold onto everything so tightly.
We have been given the gift of eternal life which means we have more than thislife to live. It means we can loosen our desperate grip on material possessions because, what do you own, or want to own, that compares with the gift of eternal life? What do you have, or ever wish to have, that you wouldn’t trade for being in the presence of God forever?
So how should we now live?
To live in the light of the Resurrection means never giving up on anyone. It means never giving up on yourself, either. It means no one is so hopeless that they can’t be transformed by the Resurrected Christ. No one is so lost that they can’t be found. No one is so low that they can’t be brought high. No one is so outside the boundaries that they can’t be brought back inside.
We Christians just don’t give up. Ever! We may need to establish important boundaries. It may take a tremendous amount of time and effort, but we believe Paul when he wrote, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
There are men and women who are in prison serving life sentences – appropriately, justly, serving life sentences – who will receive the gift of eternal life because they begged God for forgiveness, and God is more merciful than you or I ever would be. Because God has a good deal more love for humanity than we have for ourselves.
It takes us 12 days as the Church to celebrate Christmas. It will take 50 days for the Church to celebrate Easter –because we’ve a whole lot of celebrating to do!
It will take us the next 50 days to talk about what has happened here. And it will take the rest of our lives for us to try to understand and live our lives illumined by its transcendent brilliance.
How will we know we’re living our lives in the light of the Resurrection? We’ll notice that the low-level anxiety that always seems to accompany us will begin to diminish and recede. We will observe that, even after death, our relationships will still be growing and reconciling, and that we are all growing in Christ’s love until we see him as he is. We will sense Christ’s resurrected presence in and around us. We will see that we are doing absolutely every single, solitary thing we can possibly do to share this miracle with others. Our children must know this story!
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
_______________________________________________________________________________
1 The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, Eugene Boring, Editor, Abingdon Press, Nashville, p. 504
2 Ibid., page 505