This is the night, by Marie Alford-Harkey, M.Div.
Posted on
Sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter
Marie Alford-Harkey, M.Div.
Readings can be found here.
This is the night! Rejoice now! This is the night that we tell the stories…
God’s spirt sweeping over the formless void, creating light, sky, land, sea, and every living thing – declaring it good.
Rejoice now! This is the night!
This is the night when we recall that God has entrusted us humans with God’s beautiful creation. And so we remember that it is we who are charged with caring for and continuing God’s creative acts.
This is the night we tell the story…
God’s breathed life into earth-beings, created in the image of God, from God’s own imagination and will and declared them very good.
Rejoice now! This is the night!
This is the night when we celebrate that each of us is created in the beautiful, infinitely diverse and unknowable image of God: old and young, black and white, women, men, transgender people. Refugees, people with disabilities. Politicians, pundits, terrorists, martyrs – all of us created in the image of God.
This is the night we tell the story…
God delivering God’s people from slavery, even when they aren’t sure that they want to be delivered – were there no graves in Egypt?
This is the night…
When we declare that yes, we are ready to be freed from what enslaves us, even if it would be easier to go back to our oppressor. This is the night when we cry “Freedom,” and pledge to do the hard work of enacting liberation for ourselves and for everyone. This is the night when we remember that none of us is free until all of us are free.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
Miriam dancing and playing her tambourine – sing to God, who made the way clear for God’s people to move to freedom.
This is the night…
When we trust in God’s ability to make a way for liberation – not just for some of us, but for all of us.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God gathering God’s people from the four corners of the world – and giving them a land of their own.
This is the night.
This is the night when we remember millions of refugees around the world, when we pray for all who hope against hope that they can return … home. When we acknowledge in the words of the prophet Maya Angelou, that the ache for home lives in all of us.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God sprinkles God’s people with clean water, removes the heart of stone from their bodies, gives them a new heart of flesh – God’s own spirit inside God’s people.
This is the night…
When we acknowledge that we are in need of transformation, of cleansing, when we acknowledge that our hearts can turn to stone, that we must be challenged in our certainties. And this is the night when we admit that, in the words of the prophet Nadia Bolz Weber, it is painful when God removes our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, beating with God’s own breath. It is painful, yet necessary transformation that only God can enact in us.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God promises – you shall be my people and I will be your God.
This is the night…
When we admit that being God’s people is not always the easiest thing. Being God’s people calls us to places we would not have chosen and to relationships that we would as soon have avoided.
Rejoice now! This is the night we tell the story.
God transforms the human remains of war. Bones long dead, come together with sinews, flesh, and skin. And God’s breath comes from the four winds into them and they live – God brings them up from their graves.
This is the night…
When we admit that we feel completely annihilated, defeated, dried up and dead. And this is the night when we choose to hear the prophecy and allow God’s breath to bring us to life – together – a community of people enlivened with the very breath of God. This is the night when we imagine what such a community might do.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When through the Paschal mystery one of us, and all of us, are buried with Christ by baptism into death and raised with Christ to newness of life.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When we remember our own baptism, when we celebrate our promises to renounce evil and put our trust in Jesus’ grace. This is the night when we make and renew our covenant to break bread together, resist evil, proclaim the Good News with our lives, seek and serve Christ in all persons, and strive for justice and peace among all people.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When through the waters of baptism, we claim our new life in Christ.
Rejoice now! This is the night…
When through the waters of baptism, we are restored to grace and holiness of life
And … this is the night…
When we arrive, frightened, grieving, broken at the tomb, only to be asked “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
This is the night…
When we answer with truth – we do not know how one who was dead can now be alive. Even though we have been told, forewarned, and shown – we cannot understand. This is the night when we are confronted with the most beautiful mystery of our faith.
This is the night
when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell.
This is the night
when we share in Christ’s victory over death.
This is the night, beloved people of God, when we proclaim resurrection.
Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!