April 23, 2011
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Great Vigil of Easter
the Rev. Elizabeth Molitors
This is the night
for awe and wonder
darkness and flame
hushed quiet released into pealing bells, soaring anthems,
joyous brass.
This is the night, the poet says, when
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God”
This is the night for metaphor, for sign, for symbol
Because the reality we celebrate is beyond
what reason can possibly manage.
This is the night for story,
For ‘Once upon a time’
Not fairy tale, or fiction
But because, the Rabbi says,
“What happened once upon a time happens all the time.”
God moved and created.
God protected. God delivered.
God made an everlasting covenant
with you and with you and with me.
And all the trees of the field still clap their hands.
God fills our bodies with new spirits
Breaks open our chests to drop in hearts of flesh,
and take out those old stone ones
Then declares, once upon a time and this night,
that “you shall be my people,
and I will be your God.”
There will be time, later
Next week
Next month
A lifetime
To learn what it means for us to be God’s people.
But tonight?
This is the night
to revel
In what it means for God to be our God.
To get drunk with astonishment
At the things God did
Is doing
Will do
For us
Not because of the goodness points we’ve collected like frequent flyer miles
But because God is God is Love.
Tell the story
With all the drama
and fervor
and embellishments you can muster
Stand tall and sing the song
With full lungs, mouth open wide
Tell those in the world who say that hope is dead
and fear is real
That they’re wrong; dead wrong.
Tell the truth,
That the Word that became flesh and lived among us
Who ate and drank and touched and spat
Dirt into healing mud
Tenderly rubbing it into the eyes of the blind man
we could not see.
The Word – that Word -
Could not be silenced.
Betrayed – yes.
Denied – yes.
Tried
Convicted
Beaten
Broken
Crucified, left to die
Buried behind our hearts of stone.
But silenced?
Lazarus laughed, the playwright says,
when Jesus called him from the tomb.
Laughed and told the assembled crowd
That there is no death.
In the grave for three days
It seemed like The Word had spoken its last.
Resurrection gave Jesus his voice back.
This is the night, the poet says, to “Breathe in Easter,”
To find our resurrection voice
To tell the story
That death is dead and fear has lost its power.
Alleluia.
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