Alleluia! The Lord is risen. Truly He is risen.

A few moments ago we began our solemn liturgy of the Easter Vigil with the lucernarium a Latin word meaning the time of the lighting of the lamps and we lit the new fire and the great candle representing Christ risen among us. Our liturgy tonight is filled with the symbolism of light overcoming the darkness. In our opening prayer we asked that “the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.”  As the Paschal candle was processed through the community its great light was shared and the church moved from darkness into the light of our faith, our belief that Jesus Christ is “the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. All time belongs to him and all the ages. To him be glory and power through every age and forever. Amen”. The great Christological hymn we just heard, the Exultet, asks us to rejoice in this holy light. “My dearest friends standing with me in this holy light, join me in asking God for mercy.” “Rejoice O earth, in shining splendor, radiant in the brightness of your King! Christ has conquered!..Darkness vanishes forever.” “Of this night scripture says: ‘the night will be as clear as day; it will become my light, my joy.’..Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth, and man is reconciled with God!” The evangelist St. John speaks of light at the beginning of his Gospel: “The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.” (John1:4-5)

Our readings from the OT and the NT sweep through thousands of years of the history of a loving God patiently trying to save us from ourselves, asking us to be faithful and promising in return that He would never abandon us. He began our story by providing a creation for us to live in and care for. Then in an unimaginable way, God through evolution made us in His image: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” (Gen 1). We were made God’s stewards to care for his creation. Over and over again, God showed us his concern for us as we muddled along in the darkness of egotism and lack of faith in God’s care for us.

The great defining moment of our elder brothers and sisters the Jewish people is told to us in the Exodus story.  God delivers his people from slavery. Jesus has delivered us from slavery. With the prophetess Miriam we sing, “Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.” Lest we misinterpret this story from Exodus, let me recall an ancient Hasidic understanding of the Exodus.  The story goes like this. All the Jewish people are dancing with Miriam as they rejoice on the other side of the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army is being destroyed in the waters.  In the meantime, the angels of heaven are looking down on all that is happening and dancing and rejoicing with the people.  Then, the angels see that God is weeping quietly. The angels ask Him, ‘Why are you weeping?’ God replies, ‘I am thinking of those poor Egyptian soldiers, their wives, their children and their families.’

Our readings from the prophets make us aware that God continues to shed light in our world as we wrestle with our response to one of the greatest refugee crises in history and our response to the destruction of our planet. As Pope Francis reminded us in Laudato ‘Si , “The destruction of the human environment is extremely serious, not only because God has entrusted the world to us men and women, but because human life is itself a gift which must be defended from various forms of debasement.”

Yesterday during our Good Friday service, Father Bertoli in his homily asked us ‘What do you see when you look at the crucifix?’ What do we see when we recall Jesus’ passion and death on the cross? We could rephrase the question.  What do I see at the boundary between my life and my death? The answer we give will also give the answer to what we see when we look upon the crucifix. We live in a world trapped in a culture of death and there are many distinct answers to the question. The jihadists, Muslim extremists, see their death, especially if it includes the death of so-called infidels, as leading to paradise. This replaces God with their ego.  As Pope Francis has said this is a perversion of who God is and a blasphemy. I will win paradise by my own will power and I have no need of God.  A Jihadist sees no crucifix at all. The fruit of this perversion can be seen in the millions of refugees and the thousands of Christians and people of other faiths being martyred brutally.

The Christian martyr, unlike the Jihadist, does not seek death but stands firm in his belief in Christ’s final victory. The darkness shall not overcome the light. The martyr looks upon Christ’s saving act when she looks at the crucifix and like St. Stephen the first martyr, sees “heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right side of God.”

There is another kind of despair in our culture. This is the widespread notion that euthanasia and assisted suicide are acceptable.  The nonchalant manner in which euthanasia is accepted strikes fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the elderly and disabled. It casts a deep shadow on the value of their lives. There is no light but only darkness for those who seek to end their lives through assisted-suicide or euthanasia.

We who are called this evening to celebrate this Easter Vigil, what do we see when we look at the crucifix? St. Paul voices our response:

“…all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For as we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Epistle)

The agony and ignominy of the cross is the window through which we see God’s unconditional love for each one of us. The boundary between life and death is really a doorway into God’s Kingdom where we are transformed. That doorway has a cruciform shape. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed…if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”

In the Gospel of Luke, the women (NB not the men) went to the tomb and the angels said, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” If we look at the crucifix and see death and the end of a dream, we are caught up in the tomb and paralyzed. The angels message is, He is risen! Get busy and do not despair. Keep faithful and bring into your communities the great Easter message: darkness will not overcome the light.  Ultimately, sin and death are conquered through the cross of our Redeemer.

In a few moments, Sara, Sophie, Zoe and Kevin will be confirmed in this faith.  Filled with the Holy Spirit they will be seized with the conviction that our God is a loving saving God. As we rejoice with them, let us pray that we will never give up hope. 

“The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.” (John1:4-5)