[Date Prev][Date Next][Date Index]
EASTER EVE: March 30, 2002
H O M I L Y G R I T S
EASTER EVE
The Great Vigil
March 30, 2002
© Copyright 2002 by Grant Gallup
¶ Book of Common Prayer, pp 288-295
Genesis 1:1-2:2 The story of Creation
Psalm 33:1-11, or Psalm 26:5-10
Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18;9:8-13. The Flood
Psalm 46
Genesis 22:1-18 Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac
Psalm 33:12-22 or Psalm 16
Exodus 14: 10-15:1 Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea
Canticle 8, the Song of Moses
Isaiah 4:2-6 God's presence in a renewed Israel
Psalm 122
Isaiah 55:1-11 Salvation offered freely to all
Canticle 9. The First Song of Isaiah, or Psalm 42:1-7
Ezekiel 26:24-28. A new heart and a new spirit.
Psalm 42:1-7 or Catnicle 9, the First Song of Isaiah.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 The valley of dry bones
Psalm 30, or Psalm 143
Zephaniah 3:12-20 The gathering of God's people
Psalm 98, or Psalm 126
At the eucharist:
Romans 6:3-11
Psalm 114 or some other suitable psalm or a hymn
Matthew 28:1-10
{The Nicene Creed is not used at this service.}
Nine lessons are appointed for the Vigil, and there are two more for the
first mass of Easter, so we (alas) won't hear all of them in most
gatherings. Back when the Vigil service began in the Church's infancy, it
took all night. People gathered as darkness fell at the end of the
Sabbath, and as it began to dawn towards the first working day of the week
in the imperial horarium, the readings ended. The church had begun to
worship with the deacon's song at the lighting of the great beeswax
candle, and thereafter it was Bible reading till breakfast time. "May
Christ the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning," he
sang in his beautiful "Exultet" of rejoicing to all creation. It is an
allusion to this all night service which would end with the appearance of
the Morning Star at dawn. Only when the sun was fully risen would the
eucharist be shared in the light of the Lord's Day. Then the Alleluias
would shout themselves with joy.
Easter is the Church's Passover, indeed it is for the whole world a feast
of liberation, of deliverance, of restoration and resurrection. The nine
lessons that have been given us are liberation theology all the way--so
even 'though we might not hear them read this night, take your Prayer Book
out at home and turn to these pages of the Vigil, then get a good
contemporary translation of the Bible and sit and read them all aloud with
friends or family, or alone, some time during Eastertide. Sing a song or a
hymn or read a poem between them. Pray over them and think about them in
terms of your own life, our common sacred history, and the Church's
contemporary life, which is "clinging to heaven by the hems" in this
dastardly decade. Bring your parish life and your own affairs to the
Vigil and hear what questions it asks of you, of your life and lifestyle,
your heart felt thoughts and your fears, failures, and fantasies. Let
these stories be cracked open one by one as easter eggs, and find your
hopes for glory and for wholeness hidden in them.
Here are some hints about them in lieu of a homily about one of them. The
first reading is the first page of the Bible, the first chapter of
Beginnings. It tells us of the days and ways of creation and of God's
blessing all of it, and finidng it all to be good. It tells that the
earth, the sea, the air and all that is in them are given to us all, and
not to be the property of a few greedy guts to exploit. It is our gift,
whole and entirely in common. Proprietary rights remain with God, and
custodial privileges are given for our sharing. Think about that when you
watch the evening news on television and see armies with horrible weapons
wresting control of the land away from the farmer, stealing the sky from
the birds, chasing fish from the waters of the planet. When Yahweh, the
God, speaks the word is "Behold, I have given." "I have given you every
plant, every tree--you shall have them for food. Now the God gives at the
end of that chapter the Sabbath. Number one, it is not Sunday, and number
two, it is not for the purpose of going to church. The Sabbath is instead
the first labor legislation, it has been noted. It is the declaration that
the surpllus labor of the human race doesnot belong to the capitalist to
exploit, that all the work that's done by working people is all the wealth
there is--and most of it is stolen by those who have also grabed the
natural ressources of the planet and claimed to own them. God tells us
that all the people own them, and all the people have a right to work and a
right to rest from work and enjoy the fruits of their labor.
God's own rest is held up as the image of rest and joy, wealth and ease,
for the human community. Your surplus labor, your time-and-a-half, is to
supply you with rest and recreation, not to supply a Wall Street bandit
with the profit of your work. The Sabbath is not a kind of religiously
sanctioned unemployment, but is the reward of a society fully employed and
fully sharing a life of blessing. God's last act of creation is to create
the Sabbath, the liberated life of all life.
I shall not get through the Whole Nine Yards at this rate, if I linger thus
with each lection. Next comes Noah riding in on his Ark, and it is an
Ark of Liberation too. The ole ark's a moverin', and it moves with its
own liberated guest list: the human community and all its animal
companions there, saved from disaster, natural catastrophe, chaos and Old
Night. How is it done?
By technology! The ark is the first work of human technoogy wherewith the
whole of the planet's life is delivered from destruction. We need one now!
God has made a covenant with us, a resurrection pacto. And human
technology, all our genius at building (not proud towers to the heavens as
at Babel and New York) is to be turned to save the planet and its peoples
and other life from extiniton in the flood of futility in which we founder.
Not to wage Star Wars or Secret Wars, but to build a Rainbow coalition to
save us all.
Tomás Borge, the revolutionary who is the last living member of the
founding directorate of the Frente Sandinista, speaks of the "Covenant
with Death" which the Somocistas made in Nicaragua, and there are now
Somocistas of the planet, in charge on Capitalist Hill, to wage war, plan
death, conceive and execute destruction. But "the old Ark is a'moverin'
and God's covenant is a commitment to life forever, and will survive the
Flood of folly.
In the third lection, we are delivered from the religion of death, the
theology of death, when the angel stays the hand of Abraham from human
sacrifice, long the magic of much religion. The myth reminds us that all
homicide is abhorrent to our God, even when it is done in the name of those
who claim the highest motives, and hold the highest authority in earth.
Our God wants no blood, is not the blind God of and eye-for-an-eye, nor the
bald mouth God of a tooth for a tooth. "Jehovah Jireh", the motto of
the diocese of Chicago as I remember, "God will provide", is not a promise
of fabulous wealth but a promise of peace and an unbloodied Church and
State. We are delivered from religion which blood libels our God or our
neighbors.
In the fourth reading from Exodus, we are delivered from human bondage. We
are liberated from the idea that some human beings or some part of their
lives can belong to other human beings, that one nation (ours) can take
control and direct the destinies of others, as is the vanity of the
Empire's bonfires. It is an imperial lie that some people are not our
neighors, but are trespassers in what we claim as our own backyard, and
over which our "Manifest Destiny" and our "Monroe Doctrine" proclaim our
hegemony. Monroe Doctrine and Dogma make the homes of other peoples
merely our hen houses and cow pastures. Our Top Banana will decide who is
to rule in our plantation of banana republics. Yet the God of Liberation is
still singing to Liberation Movements everywhere, "Go tell old Pharoah,
Let My People Go."
The fifth reading is the prophet's vision of the liberated human
community--"In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and
glorious", and the survivors of God's people shall come home, that is
everyone who has been recored for life in the resurrected city, and when
the filth of prostituted politics and the blood of military murder are
washed away. God will come to be fully present in a renewed and restored
People. Isaiah saw it from a long way off.
Will he be able to see it in some venues in our time?
The sixth reading sees that Liberation is to be offered universally--that
there won't be a price tag on it, as televangelists and hucksters have put
there.
"Hey, everyone who thirsts, come and have a drink of this water! You
outcasts on Skid Row, with no money, come buy and have wine and milk, no
money needed, no price attached. You outcast nations, called by Bush an
'axis of evil', wheel yourself over here to God and be safe. The
liberated community is for all nations, all peoples, all religions. Yes,
even you fearful Talibanes, the good God (Allah in your language)
remembers and loves and liberates you. "Behold, you shall call nations
that you know not, and nations that didn't know you shall run your way.
Seek this God while you can,
for God doesn't think the way you do, and God's thoughts aren't yours, nor
are God's ways your way. Nothing is coming u short, nothing will return
to God empty and this God will reach out to all lands, and will prosper all
people.
The seventh reading, from Ezekiel, reinforces that promise of a gathered
people of God, brought from all places, into one place, where there will
be a new hart and a new spirit given to all. "You shall be my people and I
will be your God." This is to be liberation from all narrow nationalisms,
and all private hearts of stone. The human heart and mind are to be
liberated, and made into a heart of flesh again, fully human.
Then Ezekiel sees a valley full of dry bones, the graves of the defeated past.
It is the whole house of our sacred history, its bones dried and
scattered, its hopes lost. How are the dead, the defated, to take part in
the promise of the new community, the New Socialized Human Being, the
Restored Human Race? Resurrection in the Bible is always restoration to a
community. "When I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my
people, I will ut my Spirit within youand you shall live, nad I will place
you in your own land."
Finally the Prophet Zephaniah sees that God means to deal with oppressors.
We will deal with the enemie of he people, and we will save the lame, and
gather the expelled, and change their shame into praise and fame. And at
that time I will bring you home and gather you together.
So all nine of these lessons are charters for the constitution of our
liberation theology, and in the eucharist tonight we enter into the
promises of that liberation, that is being raised to life. As the
readings began with the story of the first sabbath rest, when God rested at
the end of creation, so the lessons close with the gospel story of the
great sabbath's ending, and the dawning of the First Day. Some women are
there in a gaveyard, and they hear a messge which sums up all the wisdom of
the Vigil: Do Not Be Afraid. They were told by the crucified rabbi
whom they had followed on foot from Galilee: Do not be afraid. His grave
is empty.
Jesus our Liberator cannot be defeated.
That is the gospel for Easter Day.
J. W. von Goethe's "Christ is Arisen" is succinct and sure:
"Christ is arisen,
Joy to thee, mortal!
Out of His prison,
Forth from its portal!
Christ is not sleeping,
Seek Him no longer;
Strong was His keeping,
Jesus was stronger.
Christ is arisen,
Seek Him not here;
Lonely His prison,
Empty His bier;
Vain His entombing,
Spices and lawn,
Vain the perfuming,
Jesus is gone.
Christ is arisen,
Joy to thee, mortal!
Empty his prison,
Broken its portal!
Rising, He giveth
His shroud to the sod;
Risen, He liveth,
And liveth to God!*
GRANT GALLUP
Apartado RP-10
CASA AVE MARIA
Managua, Nicaragua C.A.
Tel. 011-505-2662165
gallup@tmx.com.ni
*J. W. von Goethe, "Christ is Arisen," from "Christ and the Fine Arts"an
anthology by Cunthia Pearl Maus, Harper & Bros., 1938.