Remembering the daily grace of God 
The Great Vigil of Easter  |  Luke 24:1-12

Happy Easter! Christ is risen!

We gather at dusk, at the start of the third day, to welcome the risen Christ into our world, into our hearts, with gratitude and thanksgiving! It is our first celebration of a season we know is filled with joyous grace.

Much like the strange experience of Holy Week, as we attempt to remember the experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have, for two thousand years, done this. We gather with that sense of sadness and joy. As if we are living through those dark days ourselves, only to see the light shining in the darkness on this, the third day, in this holy night.

But we know Jesus hasn’t died every year for nearly two thousand cumulative deaths, right? But this is how we engage with it emotionally and physically — not just mentally — so that we know the pain and the grace intimately. We go through it, experiencing it all again. So we might remember. And come to a time of celebration in gratitude.

And what do we remember, exactly?

First, the teaching, expectation, and anticipation. That Jesus went to Jerusalem knowing what was to come. He offers his disciples a vision of what would be and helps them prepare for life after he is gone.

Then we remember the bad stuff. The darkness of the Passion, with its betrayal, abuse, torture, and eventually his crucifixion. We remember this as a torturous method of execution by the state. One which Rome reserved for insurrectionists and terrorists. We remember, not just how bad things were for the disciples, but how bad this Roman practice was. How cruel and power-mad empires always are. And, too, how complicit the religious authorities were in endorsing and encouraging the tyranny and torture of the Hebrew people.

We remember the absence felt — of a long night and a long day without Jesus. When the disciples feared for their future and wondered what to do with no rabbi to guide them. And we remember that, even though they were afraid, they were apostles, called to follow in Jesus’s Way of Love with hope and courage.

And finally, we remember the resurrection! When the women, including the greatest disciple, Mary, visit the empty tomb and bear witness to the revelation. We remember that they share the good news with the disciples, that it is they who receive the honor from God precisely because they are the ones who showed up!

And we remember, too, how the apostles were being misogynistic and didn’t trust the witness, in part because it came from women. And Peter, God bless him, needs to see it with his own eyes, does, and runs home! He’s so funny.

So we gather tonight remembering all of this! 

To be a part of a grand story that takes all of these things to heart, that knows how much we need to remember and participate in this grace-filling arc of anticipation and pain and joyful celebration. 

And we do this with the remembrance that this pattern, so special and inclusive to this time of year, to this space in the liturgical calendar, is the grand form of what every single Sunday is supposed to be like! That every Sunday is Easter for Christians. Which is to say, a holy day of celebration because of all of this other stuff we have going on in our minds and hearts and neighborhoods. Because we know that God has given us something special in this relationship with Jesus, a Messiah and Christ, a redeemer and rabbi, a lord and savior, and we don’t just say thank you, we fill our hearts with gratitude for him first. 

So when we show up each week, we have another death and resurrection experience! Another chance to love and mourn and learn and give thanks. And what I want for us tonight to hold onto is that Holy Saturday energy, that experience of absence and loss, of being out in the world waiting and hoping, maybe even protesting and rallying with others, but then coming here, gathering with others in anticipation that maybe, just maybe, if we hold onto what Jesus taught, hold onto what we have been given by him, then maybe that is enough.

The Light

The light arrives before Jesus does. Before we honor and celebrate the resurrection. Because we light it and share it and sing it and pray it. And we remember, friends! We tell stories of remembrance and hope.

We tell stories in the dark by candlelight, with the growing shadows and the growing darkness. This is the truly radical character of the Vigil, remember! We come together to remember and hope together, like monks. Like maybe, if we do this crazy thing, maybe it will work. That’s what we do in the garden and in the chapel together. When we start the fire and bless and light candles and bring the light and share it, we do this in remembrance of Jesus, right? We remember and know and say we believe tonight.

And then we celebrate the resurrection like a reunification, a reuniting with our love, our desired, the beloved one of longing. And we ring those bells and we sing in glorious praise and we lift our spirits up like hands to the sky and we say the word forbidden for those forty days, saying Alleluia! Alleluia! Like we’ve been freed, captives to the dark and now the light is here! Praise and alleluia!

This is what remembering does, friends!

It helps us believe and do! It helps us love!

Let us love tonight! Call upon the grace-filled God of love for some of the good stuff to share with loved ones and neighbors, toasting Jesus! Let us toast the apostles! Toast Mary and the women who do the real work! Let us toast the shepherds and the angels in those fields decades before! And Mother Mary and Father Joseph! Toast the beloveds and the prophets and the patriarchs and the names of God and the moments of revelation and the promises and the grace and the joy and the creation and the love, yes the love, the fundamental character and substance of God, yes, all of it.

Let us celebrate tonight with such love for creation and all that is because we remember. Because we know that God is good. And that the promise from so long ago — a promise that God’s love is beyond the weakness of our hearts and surpasses our understanding. But it reminds us that the greatest gift of God in all of creation is in us. In our love.

May God bless us and draw that love out of us! To love this neighborhood tonight and all week long.