Sermon for Easter Eve, 2021

“The Night is Come”

The Great Vigil on Easter Eve, 2021

Rev. Dcn. Kyle Hughes

At last, we have arrived at this most holy night. In the cycle of the liturgical year, the Easter vigil is its center and climax. It is the greatest liturgy of the year and is, in the words of St. Augustine, “the mother of all sacred vigils.” The reason for the importance of this vigil is that in it we celebrate the events which are the center and climax, not just of our liturgical year, but of God’s saving purposes in all of history. This night is in fact the fulcrum around which our lives--and indeed, the lives of all people in all times and in all places--find their purpose, meaning, and final end. 

The death and resurrection of Christ is, as the exultet and the liturgy of the Word tell us, the culmination and the fulfillment of all God’s saving deeds as recounted in the Old Testament. Thus, in his death and resurrection Christ is revealed as the greater Adam, the greater Noah, and the greater Moses. What God did in creating Adam, in bringing Noah through the waters of the flood, and in leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, he does anew in Christ, redeeming our fallen nature, leading us out of bondage to sin and death into newness of life. No wonder the exultet collapses all of salvation history into this one moment: “the night is come,” goes the refrain of that ancient song, when God leads his people in that first Passover out of Egypt, just as he now leads us in that greater Passover out of the grave. 

Thus, God, in his eternal wisdom, has given us these earlier events in salvation history as a way of prefiguring what Christ has won for us on this very night. In the second century, likely in the midst of a liturgy much like the one we are celebrating here tonight, Melito of Sardis said this about the stories of God and his people in the Old Testament: “For indeed the Lord’s salvation and truth were prefigured in the people, and the decrees of the Gospel were proclaimed in advance by the law. Thus the people was a type, like a preliminary sketch, and the law was the writing of an analogy. The Gospel is the narrative and fulfillment of the law, and the church is the repository of reality.” Thanks be to God! He has not left us without a series of events, the Passover merely being the greatest of a much larger set, to help illustrate and illuminate the meaning of what God has done in Christ, on this night.

But Jesus’ death and resurrection is not simply that to which everything before it pointed. It is, also, that which gives meaning to everything that has come after it, including your life, and mine. In our epistle reading from Romans 6, St. Paul tells us that it is in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we find our own identity as Christians. As Paul writes, we were buried with Christ by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. In baptism, we mystically participate in Christ’s own death and resurrection, availing ourselves of the benefits and purpose resulting from this intimate identification with our Lord. That is why it is on this very night that, following the ancient practice of the church, we renew our baptismal vows, echoing St. Paul in praying that we would die to sin and rise to newness of life. Again, it is as if salvation history is collapsed into a single moment: on this very night, Christ is raised from the dead, and we are raised with him through holy baptism.

Our Gospel passage for tonight, then, brings us to the historical event that is the pivotal moment at the center of all history. In this passage, St. Matthew recounts how the women arrived at the empty tomb, heard the words of the angel, and met Jesus on the way to Galilee. Note carefully, though, how this famous story ends with an invitation: the risen Lord tells the women not to be afraid, but to go and gather Jesus’ disciples that they too might meet their Savior. Not only, then, is tonight the night that we are buried and raised with Christ, but it is also the morning on which we stand with the women at the empty tomb and on the way to Galilee, encountering the risen Christ and deciding what we are going to do with this momentous, earth-shaking news, and this invitation that we have been given. It is an invitation that Melito of Sardis summarizes so well in a famous passage in which the present and risen Christ speaks anew to us this very evening: “It is I, says the Christ, I am he who destroys death, and triumphs over the enemy, and crushes Hades, and binds the strong man, and bears humanity off to the heavenly heights. It is I, says the Christ. So come all families of people, adulterated with sin, and receive forgiveness of sins. For I am your freedom. I am the Passover of salvation. I am the lamb slaughtered for you, I am your ransom, I am your life, I am your light, I am your salvation, I am your resurrection, I am your King. I shall raise you up by my right hand, I will lead you to the heights of heaven, there shall I show you the everlasting Father.”  

How, then, will we--will you--respond to such an invitation from such a king? On this most holy night, may we fix our minds, our hearts, and our souls on those most majestic of all words: “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” Amen.