Easter

 At the Easter Vigil last night, the Church celebrates the most joyous and solemn of all celebrations.  At the Easter Vigil we spend over an hour reading from Sacred Scripture, beginning with creation, and the faith of Abraham, and the deliverance from Egypt through the Red Sea, and the words of the prophets that foretell of Jesus the bridegroom, the abundant life he offers in living springs of water, the new covenant He will write on our hearts when He sprinkles clean water upon us. We reflect on all God has done since the beginning, because this is a cosmic event. Today something has happened that transforms everything.
Last November I went on a retreat and watched the sun rise I think every day. It was a thrilling experience. The world seems to completely transform. At first all I could see were the beautiful stars over the desert of Arizona. Then as the anticipation grew, the light became stronger and stronger. But never does it get anywhere close to the power and splendor of the light that shines from that sun when it finally comes over the horizon. It’s power is unmatched, and our eyes cannot even bear to take it in - we must look at it through a veil or shadow, or special sunglasses - lest we go blind. And while the desert was freezing at 6am, it is scorching by noon and beyond. Every day the desert is transformed by the sunrise.

The Easter Vigil liturgy is meant to keep us up late into the night, for sometime before dawn the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. The Incarnate Son of God triumphed over death and sin in the silence and darkness of the early morning. For the Jewish people, a new day begins (theologically) when the sun sets, as we hear repeated over and again in the story of creation: “evening came and morning followed, the first day / second day, / third, etc.” The new day of creation for us Christians is this day, which is a reprise of creation at a higher pitch. Today God’s words “Let there be light,” ring out anew, not simply in the natural light of sunrise or the flames of our candles that burn in this church: but rather in the deeper spiritual light that these lights symbolize.

At the Easter Vigil we continue the tradition we have practice from the earliest centuries of baptizing new adults into the faith. It is only in this cosmic dimension of the liturgy that our baptism takes on its full meaning. It is worth attending to remind us each year of what our Baptism means as we see it lived out so radically in the newly baptized.

In the newly baptized, we witness the truth: our Lord’s Resurrection has transformed our life’s destiny as radically as when the sun rises over a world covered in darkness. Everything changes. Everything takes on a new brilliance in the radiance of that light. The warmth of that sun transforms us.

I’m reading a book that speaks about Things worth dying for. The author, a bishop in his seventies, is contemplating the deepest questions that we humans must face, especially as our mortality becomes a daily companion - something we are all familiar with.
One of the most important messages of the book is what stems from the central events of our faith which we have just celebrated: God thinks you are worth dying for. He is happy to give Himself for you.

Discovering what is truly worth dying for actually determines how we should live: we find in them the things worth living for. Thus our daily lives then take on a direction and a measure, a gauge or a test by which we can decide how to live and what to say “no” to, and what to say “yes” to.

We cannot domesticate Jesus and his gospel. He bursts out of the tomb. The stone and the soldiers cannot hold Him in. “Comfortable Jesus” is not the real Jesus. Along with this fake version of Jesus as something easy to live with and control, we also witness among us the corollary perversion of the Gospel into self-help and private pursuit. Neither of these things are worth dying for.