THE GREAT VIGIL OF EASTER

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness

meets the world’s deep need.” -- Frederick Buechner

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The Great Vigil of Easter is not one of my growing up in the church memories. Easter was A VERY big deal but it all happened on Easter Morning. After a breakfast of chocolate bunny ears and a couple of Peeps I remember heading to church clutching the flower I had picked from our garden to place in the chickenwire cross waiting outside the church door to be transformed into a thing of beauty as the morning went on.
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I remember new clothes (usually involving itchy lace) and the new hat with the elastic band under my neck that my mother would be fussing with me to stop fussing with half way through the service. It was a huge deal that the children's choir got to sing "in the big church" and as a result I can't remember a time before I knew by heart all the verses of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today." The church was packed (with lots of people we didn't usually see on Sundays, including my daddy!) and I loved everything about it (except the hat!)
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But no Easter Vigil. That ancient tradition of the church crept back into the prayerbook during my young-adult-lapsed-phase and, because the parish I attended as a young mother wasn't one that had tried anything "new" liturgically since 1952 I didn't encounter the Great Vigil until seminary. I remember how dramatic it was the first time -- at St. Francis in Simi Valley -- when I experienced the darkness and rhythm of the ancient readings being suddenly interrupted by the lights and the music and the bells and the Easter Acclamation: HE IS RISEN INDEED!
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And I remember an Easter Vigil -- at St. Clare's in Ranch Cucamonga which was a tiny misson church whose sanctuary was the living room of an old ranch house -- where eight of us gathered around the salad bowl that served as our baptismal font and passed the Bible around the circle to read to each other the ancient stories of our faith before renewing our baptismal vows: HE IS RISEN INDEED!
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Tonight we will celebrate the Great Vigil of Easter at All Saints Church in Pasadena. We'll baptize 18 babies and 5 adults -- welcome 70+ new members into the church -- and when the lights come up we will ring our bells and proclaim HE IS RISEN INDEED! But first, in the liturgy of the word, we will hear not only the ancient stories of God's saving acts in our past, we will hear contemporary voices calling us to act with God in the present.
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We have partnered the Creation story with a call to be stewards of the planet in this time of global climate change. We have linked the Exodus story with a challenge to find a find the way out of our captivity to the War in Iraq. We have paired the Valley of the Dry Bones reading with the cry of one of the Lost Boys to breathe life into the genocide of Darfur. And we have offered as response to Isaiah's proclamation of Salvation freely offered to all a reaffirmation of our commitment to stand with those marginalized or excluded because of race, sexual orientation or gender identity.
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From the introduction to the liturgy for tonight's Easter Vigil: The Great Vigil of Easter is the culmination of the sacred celebration of Holy Week and the beginning of the celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection. It is the climax of the Christian Year and unfolds the story of redemption in scripture, psalm, and sacrament. It begins in darkness and proceeds to a joyous burst of light. It begins in silence and proceeds to the glorious proclamation of the Paschal Alleluia celebrating the passing from death to life, from sin to grace.
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As we baptize new Christians into the Body of Christ and incorporate new members into All Saints Church we listen to the historic record of God's saving acts in history through the scriptural stories that are our heritage. We hear from contemporary sources calling us to speak truth to power in the name of the God who calls us to walk in love with God and with each other. And we gather at the table to be fed by the bread and wine made holy -- praying that it give us strength for the journey as we go out to be the Body of Christ in the world.
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Frederick Buechner famously said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet.” The Great Vigil of Easter is a place where that gladness and that need meet in this liturgical celebration of our baptismal call.
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The Mininstry of the Word portion of tonight's Vigil is available online here ... special thanks to friends Harry Coverston and Tobias Haller for permission to use their wonderful words as part of our worship and celebration.
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And my deepest prayer as we prepare as a people of God to celebrate in our various ways and traditions this great Paschal Feast that our common acclamation of "HE IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED" might -- for even just this Easter moment -- bind us together in the common faith and life we share as members of this Body of the Christ who gave himself for us that we might walk in love with him and with one another.