We Stand Tonight

Sermon-Easter Eve- April 23, 2011

The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Everything about tonight is supposed to be primal, visceral, powerful. We light a fire, we march into a shadowy church carrying candles, following a torch. We sit in neardarkness and listen to ancient stories, the stories from the Old Testament preparing people for Jesus.

For the last several months I have been reading a guy by the name of Bernard Cornwell who writes novels about 9th centuryEnglish history-The Saxon Tales, he calls them. His main character is Uhtred of Bebbanburg. Over and over again in these stories Uhtred stresses that you are only as good as your oaths. If you swear allegiance to someone, that is more important than your life-people throughout these books are often identified as either oathbreakers-or oathkeepers.
And so after hearing the ancient stories from the Bible, we stand up and renew our Baptismal covenant-which is our way of repledging our oath to God-that was made at our baptisms.
Then, we listen to the Resurrection story-for the first time in a year. The story on Easter Eve is always of earthquakes and lightning, guards who are scared to death, and tombs that are emptied out. It is Easter Eve and everything tonight is supposed to be raw and gritty and powerful. We’re supposed to be shaken by the earthquake, and shaking from seeing angels. Twice in 6 verses these words are uttered, “Do not be afraid…” That’s the whole point, we’re supposed to be afraid! The world is shifting, there is a new reality. The dead come to life, and the living look like the dead. Women are portrayed as the brave ones in this story, and throughout people are running, rushing, hurrying-either trying to get away or being sent on death defying missions to a far land. It is Easter Eve and everything tonight is supposed to be frightening, fearsome and overwhelming.
We sit down in a few moments for the sacred meal, the food of body and blood of a savior. We are allowed to shout alleluia for the first time in a month and a half, and we hear the ancient words, “alleluia, Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed, alleluia. And then we are sent back out into the night, just like Jesus told Mary, “go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." She was sent to the disciples, they were sent to Galilee, and we are sent back out into our own darkness, to raise a light, to show the light, to be the light of Christ to the world. It is Easter Eve, and everything tonight is about darkness and light, fear and hope, death and life.
If we were doing this right, it would be freezing cold outside, and comforting warm within; we would walk into a blackened church with small tapers of light, our only protection against the unknown; we would hear the ancient stories of God and people, and we would tremble with fear and excitement. If we were doing this right, there would be no light only shadows, no noise except whisper and murmurs. In the early days of the church people would stay up all night, kneeling, praying, the only light being the candles, the only heat being the new fire. And they would be waiting for the sound of the authorities breaking in theirs door to arrest and imprison them.
This is the night we remember that a baptismal oath could cost you your life, and meeting around an altar for bread and wine might mean death.
Everything about tonight is supposed to be about fear and desperation , faith and hope. We bring small lights to fight darkness, we hear old stories to remember who we are, we take oaths pledge of who we will be, and we eat holy food to promise who we are pledged to. It is Easter Eve, the night when Christianity was born. We don’t just remember on this night- we boldly go where the first followers went-we leave here and head for our own Galilee where Jesus is waiting. Tomorrow, Easter Sunday is about light, and music, and laughter-tonight is about hope and courage and faith. “Don’t be afraid,” the angel and Jesus both told Mary. But it’s ok if we are. There is a lot of darkness and fear and discouragement in the world. Earthquakes and lightning and things that go bump in the night. But we stand before all those things (stand up), we make our oath, we tell our story, we kneel together for the holy food-and we say the bravest phrase that was ever said in the darkness-“Alleluia, he is risen!” Amen.