+Luke 24.1-10
The controversial Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek calls Christianity the religion of Love and Comedy. What could be more comedic than our gathering here this frigid night, to proclaim with warm and loving cries that Christ is risen…even in our darkness. What could be more loving than to be here, with each other, basking in the glow of a candle-lit table feasting in charity, elbow to elbow with our friends and neighbors. What could be better demonstration of our faith in love and comedy than to be here, on these hallowed grounds, kindling the New Fire, the Light of Christ, braving blustery winds, snow flurries, and sub-freezing temperatures to proclaim with warm, balmy fervor that Jesus Christ is alive! What else could send a message to the world that the implausibilities of our Christian faith are, in fact, plausible?
Our Easter Hallelujahs on this bone-chilling Easter are as contradictory as the fundamentals of our Christian faith that we profess; Fundamentals that profess that God became man, that the dead can come back to life and even more remarkable that the poor, the suffering, the destitute, the least of our brothers and sisters have a place in the Kingdom of God. The great miracle of our Christian faith is our profession that the impossible is possible—our collective story of faith is the celebration of the unknown, a holy revelry in the faith that God will redeem the least of us.
This story of implausibility is repeated throughout our sacred story; it echoes through our entire liturgy this evening. From our assembly in the frigid temperatures, down to the last moments of our Communion service were we process out into the world, fed and fueled in the knowledge that Jesus is no longer dead, that his sufferings at the hand of toxic politicians and corrupt religious officials were overcome by Love; and that the message of tolerance and mercy can conquer the slings and arrows of violence and stone-cold cynicism.
Look at the story of the Israelites passage through the Red Sea, the first lesson in tonight’s Vigil. Tonight we have professed the implausible faith that God saw the sufferings of a tiny tribe of people. We extol the love of a God who called from a burning bush to a man who was raised in the court of the Egyptian Pharaoh. This man, Moses, inflicted with an impediment of speech, led this tiny tribe of Israel over and against the most powerful and sophisticated empire the world had ever seen. Leading them out of slavery into a promised land and establishing a kingdom of God on earth for this tiny tribe.
Not ending with only one story of paradox in Israel’s deliverance, our Gospel goes further with our celebration of an empty tomb. Tonight we celebrate the light of our living God in the darkness of an empty tomb. Archbishop Rowan Williams writes:
The empty grave, that strange and ambivalent sign, stands as our reminder that the life of Jesus is not ‘over,’ not limited and defined and tidied up. He is ‘with us.’ In every extremity, every horror and pain, Jesus is accessible as the one who continued to make God’s loving presence wholly present in the depth of his own anguish and abandonment. There is a place for God now in all suffering, at the heart of suffering and even of death, because we have seen the glory of God abiding in the squalor and humiliation of Jesus’ execution.
Our Gospel message professes that in the face of scorn, intolerance, greed, and hardness of heart; that God’s message of servant-leadership, humility, and Love is more potent and powerful than any Empire or mob. We profess a Gospel that self-sacrificing love can reign as a Love supreme against the corruption of fundamentalism and as well as bureaucratic indifference. Our story tells the implausible message that our Great and mighty God chose to live as one us even to the point of death. And that even in death there is life.
Symbolized by the creative holy properties of water, wine, and bread; and enacted daily in the extra-ordinary use our Flesh and Bone to his service, our faith’s story shows us that Jesus is alive. He is with us; his good work continues in us and by us. That is the most implausible of all… that Jesus would take it upon himself to be blessed, broken, and given to us as a gift. A perpetual gift of remembrance of God’s redemptive love for all people in the face of a world that exalts greed, gluttony and self-interest…where love rolls down like mighty water from stones, eroding the barriers of hatred that stand in its way.
Bridge the implausible gap between what we say and what we do. Make the heart-warming words of our Baptismal covenant, become something more than idle pleasantries and kindle them to become fiery source of light and love. Use those words to make plausible God’s kingdom on earth.
Remember God’s greatest gift came as a contradiction, remember that we are the unlikely heirs of Christ’s message of Love in the face of a frightening world, remember always the great juxtaposition of this night when lilies, daffodils and crocuses are frozen, when the dead rise to new life, and when the Light of Christ burns fiercely in the midst of a frigid world of indifference.
‘In Him there is no darkness at all. The night and the day are both alike. The Lamb is the light of the city of God. Shine in [our] heart, Lord Jesus.’
AMEN.
Darcie Steinke, ‘Something to Believe in,’ Salon (www.salon.com) accessed on April 7, 2007.
Rowan Williams, ‘Risen Indeed,’ A Ray of Darkness (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cowley Publications, 1995), p. 59.
Kathleen Thomerson, ‘I want to walk as a child of the Light,’ Episcopal Hymnal 1982, hymn 490.
