Dear Brothers and Sisters, how good it feels to say “Alleluia” tonight! Ever since we put the acclamation of our Resurrection joy away some forty days ago, we have been yearning for the opportunity to celebrate, once again, the fullness of our salvation. And this is the night! This is the night when Jesus Christ breaks the prison-bars of death and rises triumphant over the grave! We have kept vigil for the fullness of that promise to be revealed, and now, here we are! How could we do anything less than shout “Alleluia” with all of our joy?!
Tonight, we have gathered in the oppressive darkness of the world around us. The sadness of sin and death, culminating in the death of our Savior, seemed for a time to have triumphed. We know, only too well, that it was our sins that brought Jesus to the Cross: it was indeed our infirmities that he bore, our brokenness on display for all the world to see. So as we gathered in a dark Church or out on the dark piazza, we certainly must have felt that sadness in a special way. But we know the whole story, don’t we? And because we do know the whole story, even in our experience of sadness, there is that expectation, that part of us that knows that joy is on its way.
As we have gathered over the last three nights to let the story of our salvation unfold, we have had an ever-heightened sense of yearning for the story to come to its fruition. And tonight, we are treated to an even greater dose of that. Tonight, we have heard stories of God’s desire to bring us back to him. We have seen that time and time again, God has broken through the history of our brokenness, has triumphed over the lure of sin, and has redirected his chosen ones to the path of life. We have recalled that God created everything to reflect the resplendent goodness that is God; we have seen Abraham, on the cusp of inheriting the promise of eternity for all his descendants, called upon to sacrifice his only son to show his love, only to have it all turned on its head when God promises to provide the lamb for the sacrifice, that lamb that is the foreshadowing of a Savior; we have seen Moses lead the people out of the Egypt that has held them slaves to sin, through the desert of desolation and yearning for God, safely through the waters of the Red Sea which flowed back to wash all their sins away, that journey that is the prefiguring of the sacrament of Baptism; then the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel have called us to come to the water, to be nourished freely and cleansed of our impurities.
Tonight we have heard in reading after reading, that God will absolutely not ever abandon his loved and chosen ones to sin and death. We have heard that God initiated the covenant and pursues it forever, never forcing us to accept his will, but willing that we should follow him and accept his mercy. God has provided the lamb of salvation, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. God has gone to the cross and been in the tomb and descended to hell – there is nowhere that is beyond the reach of God’s mercy, there is no place, no depth to which God will not go to redeem his beloved creation. God’s mercy endures forever!
God delights in the freedom of will that we possess as a natural part of who we are, because it gives us the opportunity to freely choose to love him, as he freely chooses to love us. But he knows that same free will can and will also lead us astray, into sin, into evil. The free choice to love God is a greater good than the absence of evil, so not imbuing us with free will was never an option. Instead, evil and sin and our fallenness are redeemed on this most holy of all nights, this night which “dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.”
And thus it is fitting that this night is the night when we focus on Baptism. Everything is in place: the waters of the Red Sea are parted, the pillar of fire glows to the honor of God, we are led to grace and joined to God’s holy ones of every time and place, Christ emerges triumphant from the underworld and the sin of Adam is redeemed forever. And so Korrin, our Elect, in a few moments will enter the waters of Baptism from the west: that place of the setting sun, renouncing the prince of darkness, professing faith in God, dying with Christ in the waters, emerging to new life, triumphant with Christ on the east, and encountering the bright morning star whose light blazes for all eternity. We will hold our breath as the waters flow over her, and sing Alleluia when she is reborn, crying out the praise of God with all the joy the Church can muster!
Our joy will continue to overflow as she and Brian, our candidate for full Communion with the Church, are Confirmed in the Holy Spirit and fed for the very first time with the Eucharistic Bread of Life and Cup of Eternal Salvation. God’s mercy has once again triumphed and brought two wonderful young people into the family of the Church and the community of our parish. God’s goodness shows forth all its splendor in so many wonderful ways on this most holy of all nights!
This is the night that redeems all of our days and nights. This is the night when sin and death are rendered impotent by the plunging of the Paschal candle, the Light of Christ, into the waters of Baptism. On this night, everything is turned upside-down; sin and death no longer define who we are as human beings; the forces of evil search in vain for darkness in which to cower, because the bright morning star has washed the darkness away. On this night, the waters of Baptism kill death, wash away faults and wickedness, give refreshment to those who are parched for holiness, and bring life to all who have withered in the desert of brokenness.
And so, may the flame of our joy, blazing against the darkness of the world’s night, be found still burning by the Morning Star: the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ our Lord, God’s only Son, who coming back from even from the depths of death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever! Amen!