April 10 2004
Luke 24.1-12
This is the night. There is no other like it. Since Thursday, we have washed feet here. We have fasted in various ways to grow hungry for the words and deeds of this night. We have come in the darkness, gathered at a fire, followed the great pillar of light and proclaimed over and over: “This is the night.” We have spent a long time with our book, listening in the darkness to the stories and poems that unfold for us the plan of God. We have dined on the story of creation, the the deliverance from oppression to freedom, the passionate love of God and the people of Israel, and we have proclaimed the death of the Lord into which we have been baptized, and we proclaim his resurrection. At least, we proclaim that the tomb is empty.
What to make of that empty tomb is what the rest of our lives will be about. What is to come tonight sketches out the shadow of that future. We will call out the names of all our saints, our holy ancestors in this faith; we will invite the elect and those to be confirmed to renounce evil with us and enter into the mystery of redemption by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, we shall lead them to the table,
bring good bread and wine and together, lift up our hearts in praise and thanks to God. Finally, we shall share that meager bread and a sip of the cup of wine made blood, for this is what we are now, all of us, the body and blood of Christ. This is our future, and it is how we shall proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes in glory. We shall live in the communion of saints. We shall live in contrast and in contest with evil. We shall bring the hungry to feast on the Word and invite them to join us at this table. We shall look into the empty tombs of lonely lives, broken hearts, and the sorrowful; and we shall remember this night and shall bring them hope.
We will remember the words of Paul: “You baptized people are dead people. Christ lives, and that is how we live now, as He has lived among us. Those women who looked into that empty tomb did not know what to make of it until they remembered.
That then is what we are doing here tonight: Remembering. This is the night. This is the night to remember. This is the night to rejoice. This is the night for us all to rise up, to cast aside the darkness and its deeds. This is the night when Christ born in us, lives in us, and with Him we live forever.
So now, we get on our feet. We call the elect. Invoke the presence of Holy People,
and after months and months of waiting and forty days of penance, prayer, and sacrifice, we go to the water and lead these chosen ones through it to freedom and life everlasting.