It Begins in Darkness (Great Vigil of Easter; Holy Baptism)

“It Begins in Darkness”
The Great Vigil of Easter
15 April 2017 8:00 p.m. Sung Eucharist with Holy Baptism

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation] ; Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 [The Flood] ; Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea] ; Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all] ;
Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones] ; Romans 6:3-11 ;   Psalm 114 ; Matthew 28:1-10

May the light of Christ, rising in glory,
banish all darkness from our hearts and minds.   Amen.

It begins in darkness.

The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) set the date of Easter as the first Sunday following the full moon that falls on or after the spring equinox.  Jesus rose on a Sunday, just after his death at Passover, a festival set by the full moon after Spring equinox.  In practical counting, the date of the full moon, because it changes from time zone to time zone, is counted as 14 days after no moon at all is visible.  The counting starts in the darkness of the new moon.   

The day itself, as in all ancient calendars, begins at sundown.  As we read in the creation story tonight, the evening was, the morning was, the first day.  Easter Sunday begins in the darkness after the sun is fully set on Saturday.   

It begins in darkness. 

The Great Vigil of Easter, the heart of the Christian year, and mother of all our celebrations, begins in darkness before the New Fire is lit.  The Paschal Candle is blessed and lit, and the darkness begins to yield. 

In Easter, we celebrate the coming of the light in the darkness.  And we learn that what St. John says is true, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it."

The Great Easter Proclamation, the ancient hymn the Exsultet we sang tonight, says it best: 

This is the night, when you brought our parents… out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.  This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life. This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave…  when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord. How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and we are reconciled to God. 

The Paschal Candle, which will light our little Church throughout the Great Fifty Days and then come out for all baptisms and funerals throughout the year, is a symbol of this great light, Christ, a pillar of fire in our desert, light in our darkness.  As the Exsutlet continues,

May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning …

And yet, it all begins in darkness

All spiritual growth and renewal begins, at least in part, in darkness.  Plato said anyone wishing enlightenment must first undergo aporeia—an acknowledgment of ignorance.  There can be no spiritual answers where there is not first a spiritual question, an aporeia.  Death must precede life, you have to lose yourself to find yourself. 

It begins in darkness: Christ betrayed, Christ tortured, Christ killed.  And then light dawns with the unexpected and startlingly unique act of God, God’s ultimate joke on the powers of darkness:  Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed.   And the risen Lord is not a ghost or a zombie, alive, but somehow less alive than we are.  The risen Lord is more alive, more vital that he had ever been before, so much so that his disciples on occasion fail to recognize him right off.

In a few minutes, Lissa will be baptized.  We celebrate the sacrament of Holy Baptism on this night, which begins in darkness but ends in light, because its waters symbolize for us a death of sorts:  death to our old ways and new life in the spirit.   The water of baptism is consecrated in part by dipping in it the paschal candle.  But how can baptism make us holy?  What about the fact that we seem afterwards to be very much the same people as before? 

It is this way with all the sacraments: in Eucharist, common bread and wine become the body of Christ, even as they remain to all appearances bread and wine.   In reconciliation, we face our guilt and God drives it away, but we remain inclined to sin afterwards all the same.  In matrimony, God blesses our relationship, but we still have to work on it to keep it alive and growing. 

The sacraments take place in time, but are also eternal.  

In the movie Tender Mercies.  Robert Duvall plays Mac, a down-on-his-luck country singer recovering from alcoholism.  A young widow offers him room and board at her Texas motel in exchange for handyman help.  Hope and grace stir in his life.  Eventually both Mac and the widow’s young boy, Sonny, decide to be baptized. Driving home afterwards, Sonny says: "Well, we done it Mac, we was baptized." He looks into the truck’s rearview mirror and studies himself for a moment. "Everybody said I’d feel like a changed person. Do you feel like a changed person?" "Not yet," replies Mac. "You don’t look any different, Mac." "Do you think I look any different?" "Not yet," answers Mac.  

Like Sonny, we most often can’t see ourselves as changed people.  Baptism or no, we wonder if there is any possibility of change in our lives.  But that is exactly where the great mystery of Easter intersects with our lives.  In the baptismal creed, we say we believe in the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.  In sacraments, we get a glimpse of what’s really going on.  And just as Jesus at his baptism heard the voice of God, so we each hear in our baptism, “You are my child.  I love you.  You make me happy.”

It starts in silence, but it ends in song.  It starts in darkness, but it ends in light. 

Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.