Sermon: Easter Vigil 2010

 

The Very Revd Victor Stock is Dean of Guildford Photograph of Victor Stock

Preacher:
Victor Stock
Date:
Saturday 3rd April 2010
Service:
Easter Vigil
Readings:
Mark 16: 8

When were you last afraid of something?  I don’t mean in a jokey kind of way (Be very afraid!) - I mean scared.  Not being able to answer a question in an exam, or being afraid of other people in the playground, or, if a soldier, the prospect of being shipped out to Afghanistan, or the fear of somebody at home dying, or wondering what the doctor’s going to say when we are ill?  But every time we’re afraid of something, we’re also at a beginning.  We’re not the only people who’ve been afraid of what’s coming next, of what we’ve been asked to do or what we’ve done.  The person next to you is exactly the same and the person in front and the person behind – that’s what the Christian Church is for – a company of people who are not afraid of being afraid.

In a minute the Bishop is going to pour water over some to signify a new beginning, a not being afraid to let go of the past – that’s what Baptism is, letting go of the past and being ready for the future.  Then the Bishop is going to lay his hands on people’s heads, confirming what has already been done by God; inviting you to turn away from the past and face the future with the rest of us.  And all because of what tonight is for Christian people.  Tonight is the Eve of Easter; the Easter Vigil, a time of praying and watching, full of amazing ceremonies: lighting a fire, lighting the Easter candle, and singing to it.  What a weird thing, for someone to sing to a candle!

Then there’s the Gloria, that Christmas song that we haven’t sung all through Lent which strangely bursts out again tonight after a six and a half week rest, and we make as much noise as we can to show how pleased we are.  We’re not afraid of the dark because wherever we sing God’s praises, there’s nothing to be afraid of.  You remember the story of the shepherds: ‘Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy’.  What started there in the birth of a baby comes to its glorious fulfilment tonight in a Dead Man Walking – Jesus, who death could not overpower.  Wherever the light of the candle is passed one from one hand to another, this light spreads and darkness is pushed back.

2,000 years ago someone called Mark wrote one of the first stories about Jesus and his Greek text finishes at verse 8 of chapter 16 of his Gospel with the words, ‘And they were afraid’.  The women go to the tomb but the body of Jesus isn’t there and they’re afraid.  Later on, somebody added a more comforting kind of sequel to round off the book in the light of what people had come to live by; the fact that Jesus, that dead man, was walking.  But the original story, to our great comfort and encouragement, ends with ‘And they were afraid’.  Who wouldn’t be?  To go to a tomb to wash and annoint the body of a dead friend and find not only the body gone, but strange beings who tell you that your friend has been raised from the dead.

One of the most obvious points about this great ceremony, the Easter Vigil, with your Baptism and Confirmation, is that you don’t really need a sermon at all because you, the candidates for Baptism and Confirmation, are the sermon.  You’ve not been afraid of being teased at school, of doing something different you’ve not done before.

 

At one Confirmation here we had a group of young officers from Sandhurst.  We were told the other day how one of that number had to preside in the absence of a priest over the funerals of three comrades in Afghanistan, and how that soldier’s Confirmation here in the Cathedral on Easter Eve had given him a foundation from which he could face fear and be of service.  Such testing times are dramatic in their intensity and demand, but for most of us our test will be what we’re like when being a Christian becomes routine, when it requires sticking at, getting out of bed, going to Church, learning how to pray, learning how to be quiet in our minds and open to that mystery we call God, and how to go on doing all this when most of our friends think we’re weird.  When we think we’re weird, that’s the big temptation; the temptation is to give up and not bother.  But tonight is the start of a pilgrimage and pilgrimage is about going on.  We’re not alone - the people beside you, in front of you and behind you sometimes find the going just as hard.

What a fantastic night this is, this most important night of the year!  For 2,000 years Christians have gathered to celebrate the reversal of all known facts; that the dead can live, that a man wrapped in a shroud and laid in a rocky tomb can be brought by God’s un-measurable power to life.  And more, that we, for all our hesitation and half-understanding and back-sliding and sinfulness, can be joined to Jesus Christ, fed by him with his very own life, in all its risen power, in the Holy Communion many of us are about to receive for the first time.

So, those wonderful words from Mark’s Gospel set us on our way and, when things are difficult, encourage us.  ‘“He is not here.  Look, there’s the place where they laid him.  He’ll go on before you into Galilee and you will see him there as he told you”.  Then they went out and ran away from the tomb beside themselves with terror, and said nothing to anybody, for they were afraid’.  Thank goodness that was only the beginning, because in fact they told so many people that you and I are here tonight, leaving the past behind and walking into God’s future with head erect because Jesus Christ is risen and we so much want to be risen with him also.