Great Vigil 2010
You can usually tell how big a story is based on who you tell it to. For example, when a new Pope is elected the world watches for the color of smoke on live cable news and streaming video.
So who do we tell the news that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead? Beginning with the opening words of this Vigil from the Exultet I so beatifully sang, let’s take a look, shall we?
Rejoice, heavenly powers!
Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God's throne!
Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,
Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!
Alrighty, then, let’s tally it all up: Innumerable Angels, countless spiritual realities, all particles in the universe, every atom making up planet earth, and the entire Church of Jesus Christ.
I think it’s fair to say this Easter thing is big news! I’m no media expert, but given the audience, this may even beat out the latest Tiger Woods scandal!
..and it sure does! Tonight speaks for itself: Jesus is risen from the dead. The power of his love has conquered the most feared thing in the universe - death. If they could, stars and galaxies would tremble before it. The natural world defends itself against it. Human beings try to escape it.
To everything and everyone, visible and invisible, in the universe, Love-alive-again says, "it is finished. It is my death that has trampled down death itself. My risen life is a death sentence to death. It is still there but it is hardly final. It rages and wails like a toddler throwing a tantrum and should be feared just as much. You fear it will all come to an end? Trust me, it already has. Love -- the love you saw on the cross on Friday afternoon -- doesn't just conquer all; it destroys the worst and glorifies the best."
New life. Sounds like a wonderful promise, doesn't it? Our secular society substitutes newborn chickens and pagan mythologies for Easter. We speak of a new hope originating in the human person who by some unconquerable ego is able to transform the elements themselves.
Again, I'm no media expert but I think they call this "spin." It's an attempt to manage the message as if the sealed tomb had actually worked.
If the risen Christ has defeated what seems to defeat everything else, isn't that good enough? Our joy and celebration doesn't add to the reality because it needs no addition. If our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to God's greatness but makes us grow in grace, our Alleluia accomplishes the same thing.
On Thursday we were handed Love; on Friday we were offered it; and tonight we are embraced by it. Love shown is best known. Tonight we see it as humanity had never seen it before. What we may have missed on Thursday and ignored on Friday is something we cannot avoid today.
The intimacy of the Last Supper and the publicity of Calvary are completed in the universality of Easter. This makes the Big Bang look like a little firecracker. The Creator has re-created everything. Grace, even more than gravity, has become the truest force in the universe.
Is that a bit heavy? A little over the top? Sure is; wouldn't be worth it if it wasn't!
Easter forbids us to look at anything in the same way ever again. And that includes ourselves.
So rejoice in the risen love of Easter. Yes, it has reconstituted the universe but even more to our concern, it has remade each one of us even more in the image and likeness but God himself.
This is our good news coming from the empty tomb and the joyful whisperers of hope-filled disciples:
Christ is risen!
He has risen indeed!