April 7, 2007 - Easter Vigil, Year C
Saint James Episcopal Church, Saint James, NY

It's cold outside. Cold, and a little threatening;
as we stood round that fire, I suspect none of us would have been surprised
to see snowflakes drifting through the smoke.
It's not what most of us associate
with Easter, and especially hard to adjust to
after the burst of warm weather
that welcomed us in late March,
which tempted us to put away our coats and boots, and unpack our summer clothes.
Instead, though, we've needed those coats, along with glove and boots and umbrellas.
And I have to confess
that I've actually felt a whole lot more at home this last week
than other, more pleasant
Holy Weeks
in recent years.
Because growing up in Australia
Easter falls
in the middle of autumn,
and all through Lent
the days grow shorter and darker and colder.
The trees lose their leaves, or sag into a whispery still greyness,
plants rot into the ground,
nature gets busy
preparing us
for death.
Good Friday
seems
the natural culmination of it all.

And then comes Easter,
and Christians get about proclaiming
something which is against all that nature is trying to tell us.
Death has lost the battle. Life has triumphed. Christ is alive!

We're confronted with the astounding truth of it.
This world of ours is so clearly burdened, groaning,
but God,
God alone,
brings new life.
Christ is risen. Alleluia!

Here in the northern hemisphere,
sometimes the good news of Easter
is muted.
Because when Easter comes as a beautiful spring day
sometimes we miss
its incredible miracle.
When birds are singing and flowers are blooming and the earth is full of new growth
it somehow seems
just natural
that resurrection should occur.
The world itself
is bursting with life,
and you don't really need God
to get the point.

But this year
we are still waiting.
The flowers are not quite
in bloom,
the ground has not warmed enough
to safely plant our seedlings,
the sky still looms dark with the promise of more snow.
This year
Good Friday matched the mood of the weather,
and the mood of our souls,
and this year, Easter comes,
and we know that it's not just about nature, this year
Easter comes piercing into our lives,
shouting defiantly,
Christ is risen. Alleluia!

And this is the night.
This is the night
when it all happened,
this is the night
when everything changed.
A night as dark, and likely as cold as this;
and the women still red-eyed with grief.
Friday, Good Friday we call it, but it didn't feel good to them,
Friday was over, and they had collapsed into a sleep
that was almost like unconsciousness;
Thursday night
had been long and dark,
and Friday's dawn had brought no reprieve.
Their Lord, teacher, son
had died, and it felt like the world should have ended.
As indeed
it almost had.
As he breathed his last rasping breath,
the temple hangings
were torn down the middle,
and the ground quaked,
and tombs burst open,
heaving their bodies back into life.
But it made no difference.
He was still dead.

And Saturday morning came, the light piercing into their sleep,
and they woke, wishing they would never wake,
and woke to a day of Sabbath, a day of rest, when the last thing they wanted to do
was rest.
Keeping busy
would have at least
distracted them.
Instead, long hours loomed before them, long hours to sit
and remember
and think
what might have been.

And so it was
that night was welcome.
Sundown came, and with it the end of the Sabbath.
At least they could now busy themselves,
distract themselves
by gathering spices and cloths,
ready to go to the tomb next morning as soon as there was enough light to see by,
to care for the body
so hastily buried
on Friday
afternoon.

But they couldn't wait. Not this night the exhausted sleep
of grief,
but instead the tossing and turning of a day too heavy with emotion and too little action,
and so it was not near light
when they set out from their homes
to gather and wait by the tomb,
in the hope that maybe the night watchman, or even the guards
that Pilate had set on the sabbath
would roll back the stone
so that they could tend
to his body.

They knew what they would find,
his cold flesh,
bloodied and torn, barely wrapped, the minimum attention
paid
to get it in the ground
before sunset announced Sabbath.

And so they went back to the tomb, back where they had laid him and sat in vigil
that Friday afternoon.
They went back,
but as they came near,
the earth began to shudder
and the ground began to shake.
A flash of lightning
took human shape, and the tomb ahead
yawned darkly open.
And the angel,
for that was what the lightning form was, the angel said
"Do not be afraid."

Do not be afraid? The world that they knew,
the world
had come undone.
And empty tomb, an earthquake, an angel.
And a message.
Tell his disciples, "Jesus has been raised!"

And as they turned and ran
they met Jesus himself,
alive, but they had seen him dead;
alive, but what about the tomb?
Alive, and death had no more power over them.

This is the night
in which the world changed
suddenly
unmistakably
for all time.

Jesus was risen, Jesus is risen,
and death has no more control over us.
In death, Jesus dealt with sin.
Our past
is history, buried
history.
That's the gift
of Good Friday.

And in resurrected life, Jesus dealt with death.
Our future
is not to be history, buried
history.
Our future
is life, life unmistakable,
life inexplicable,
life
eternal.

This is the night that became
the pivot point
for all creation.
Because on this night
we are freed
from the bonds of creation,
the inevitable cycles
of life and death
that we see around us,
winter to spring to summer to fall to winter.

This night, this night above all nights,
God broke the cycle.
Death no longer wins.
We no longer have to fear.
Life has come, life stronger than the grave.

Easter comes piercing into our lives,
shouting defiantly,
Christ is risen. Alleluia!

©Raewynne J.Whiteley, 2007