Easter Vigil: 22-23 March 2008
(Acts 10:34-43/Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24/Colossians 3:1-17/John 20:1-18)
Lord and Messiah
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night: the mountains and hills burst into song before our risen Lord and all the trees of the field clap their hands in praise of the One who was slain but who now lives again (Is 55:12).
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night: the voices of many angels surrounding the throne, the voices of the living creatures and the elders, the voices of myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands resound with full praise,
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing!”
and every creature on heaven and earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them sing,
“To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!”
and the four living creatures say, “Amen!” and the elders fall down and worship (Rev 5:11-14).
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night: the angel blows his trumpet and loud voices in heaven say,
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15).
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night. And God grant that our voices might join theirs in this panoply of praise to God our Creator and Father, to Christ our Savior and Redeemer, and to the Holy Spirit, our Sanctifier and Advocate, to whom be all glory and honor now and unto the ages of ages! Amen.
And so we say again:
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
God grant us minds to understand the meaning of this mystery of resurrection: ordained from the foundations of the world, hidden in ages past, but now revealed in these last days when God has poured out his Spirit upon all flesh – upon sons and daughters and young men and old men, on slaves, both men and women, and upon everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord (Act 2:17 ff).
God grant us minds to understand the meaning of this mystery of resurrection: not as the sons and daughters of this passing age understand it, not as those who hold a form of godliness but deny its power understand it, but as forgiven and restored and Spirit-filled Peter understood it and proclaimed it to devout Jews from every nation under heaven on Pentecost.
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know – this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power (Acts 2:22-24, NRSV).
Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36, NRSV).
God grant us minds to understand the meaning of this mystery of resurrection: Jesus is Lord and Messiah. Through the resurrection God the Father has vindicated his only-begotten Son Jesus – has declared him to be in the right – and has made him both Lord and Messiah. God grant that we are as clear in our understanding of this mystery as Peter was in his, and let me be clear in this moment. The meaning of the resurrection is not simply that there is life after death and that if we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior – whatever we think that means – we will go to heaven to live forever with him when we die. Some of that is true, but it is not the meaning of the resurrection. I say again, with Peter, that the meaning of the resurrection is that God the Father has vindicated his only-begotten Son Jesus – has declared him to be in the right – and has made him both Lord and Messiah. And this means that the voices in heaven, the voices that spoke at the sound of the trumpet, proclaimed the great resurrection truth:
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15).
The kingdom of God that we pray for boldly as Christ our Savior taught us has indeed dawned in the resurrection. And we are to proclaim this meaning of the mystery of resurrection to all peoples and nations – not only with our lips but with our lives – calling all to baptism and holy obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself has commanded.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18-20, NRSV).
If Jesus is Lord and Messiah as the resurrection proclaims, then all the powers that claimed dominion and arrayed themselves against him were not: neither the political juggernaut of Rome wielding the power of the sword, nor the self-serving elite of the religious establishment and the zealous religious reformers – priest, Sadducee, scribe, and Pharisee – wielding the power of tradition and intimidation, nor the spiritual rulers and principalities of this fallen world – Satan himself – wielding the power of deception, temptation, and sin. In the resurrection Jesus triumphed over these and all other pretenders to his rightful authority – triumphed over them and shamed them – leading them captive in his victory procession from the tomb. If Jesus is Lord and Messiah as the resurrection proclaims, then death and hell have been defeated – though not yet destroyed – and must themselves bow before the one who was dead but now lives, before the one who harrowed hell and set free its prisoners.
If Jesus is Lord and Messiah as the resurrection proclaims, then all the powers that even now claim dominion and array themselves against him are not: political systems that wage wars of ideological and territorial aggression and that justify all manner of evil in the name of expediency; economic systems that disproportionately favor the wealthy – whether individual, corporate, or national – and that turn deaf ears to the cries of the poor – cries the Righteous Judge will surely hear; philosophical and educational systems that dismiss God as a quaint and embarrassing hypothesis for which they have no need; religious systems that oppress, brutalize, and terrorize – or that marginalize, vilify, or ignore – in the name of their god. To these pretenders to Jesus’s rightful authority – to these and to all others – we proclaim,
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Through his resurrection he has become both Lord and Messiah. Through his resurrection the kingdom of God has come not just within us as a personal, spiritual reality, but among us as a corporate, material, historical reality. And because of that, we have work to do.
Through his resurrection Christ launched this great kingdom venture, as only he could. Know this with certainty: the kingdom is – from start to finish – the work of God. We neither design it nor build it. But, following the blueprints left for us in scripture and sacrament and church, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we implement the victory of the resurrection and we build for the kingdom (N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope). Thus our brother Paul writes at the end of his great resurrection discourse in 1 Corinthians 15, in view of the resurrection of Christ and our similar resurrection to come,
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58).
Because of the resurrection we labor in the Lord. Because of the resurrection this labor is not in vain. If Christ rose again only to escape this material world into some disembodied, spiritual existence in heaven and if our only purpose is one day to follow him there then nothing in this life beyond personal faith and dogged obedience matters much at all. If this world is expendable – just a preparatory phase on the way to heaven or a failed experiment in material existence – then nothing in this life beyond personal faith and dogged obedience matters much at all. If people’s bodies are “base stuff,” mere empty shells that hold the true, spiritual spark of God – the soul – that longs to transcend the physical as a prisoner longs for escape from confinement, then nothing in this life beyond personal faith and dogged obedience matters very much. If this is true then, Paul notwithstanding, most all of our labor is in vain. But this is not what the church proclaims on this most holy night. This is not the historic faith of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic church. No: this is a resurgence of the gnosticism that so bedeviled the early church and which now threatens to compromise our message – a Gnosticism found not only in new age expressions of our faith but in rapture-obsessed, fundamentalist expressions as well.
We will have none of this. We proclaim Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of man – truly and fully human and truly and fully divine. We proclaim that this same Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. We proclaim that he lived among us as one of us and revealed to us the fullness of God incarnate. We proclaim that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. We proclaim that he descended to the dead. And we proclaim that on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures – rose again in full divinity and fully transformed humanity. We proclaim that he ascended into heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords and as our representative before God, his Father and our Father. We proclaim that in and through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection he has inaugurated God’s kingdom on earth and set us about implementing his victory and building for his kingdom. We proclaim that everything matters – that every act of justice and righteousness, every expression of compassion and mercy, every infusion of truth and beauty done in the name of the risen Lord builds for his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven and will stand in that last, great day when Christ returns and the new heaven and new earth are joined and God is all and in all. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Yes, Christ is risen and his resurrection proclaims him as both Lord and Messiah.
Yes, Christ is risen and his resurrection marks the advent of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Yes, Christ is risen and his resurrection is our commission to implement that resurrection and to build for that kingdom in acts of justice, righteousness, compassion, mercy, love, truth, and beauty. Know that, in the risen Christ, everything matters and no labor is in vain.
And, so again, with all the faithful in every time and place – saints in heaven and saints on earth – with myriads of myriads of angels and archangels, with apostles and martyrs, with cherubim and seraphim, with the elders and the living creatures around the throne, we take our place and raise our voices to proclaim,
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
(Acts 10:34-43/Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24/Colossians 3:1-17/John 20:1-18)
Lord and Messiah
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night: the mountains and hills burst into song before our risen Lord and all the trees of the field clap their hands in praise of the One who was slain but who now lives again (Is 55:12).
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night: the voices of many angels surrounding the throne, the voices of the living creatures and the elders, the voices of myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands resound with full praise,
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honour and glory and blessing!”
and every creature on heaven and earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them sing,
“To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!”
and the four living creatures say, “Amen!” and the elders fall down and worship (Rev 5:11-14).
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night: the angel blows his trumpet and loud voices in heaven say,
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15).
God grant us ears to hear the rejoicing of all creation on this most holy night. And God grant that our voices might join theirs in this panoply of praise to God our Creator and Father, to Christ our Savior and Redeemer, and to the Holy Spirit, our Sanctifier and Advocate, to whom be all glory and honor now and unto the ages of ages! Amen.
And so we say again:
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
God grant us minds to understand the meaning of this mystery of resurrection: ordained from the foundations of the world, hidden in ages past, but now revealed in these last days when God has poured out his Spirit upon all flesh – upon sons and daughters and young men and old men, on slaves, both men and women, and upon everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord (Act 2:17 ff).
God grant us minds to understand the meaning of this mystery of resurrection: not as the sons and daughters of this passing age understand it, not as those who hold a form of godliness but deny its power understand it, but as forgiven and restored and Spirit-filled Peter understood it and proclaimed it to devout Jews from every nation under heaven on Pentecost.
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know – this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power (Acts 2:22-24, NRSV).
Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36, NRSV).
God grant us minds to understand the meaning of this mystery of resurrection: Jesus is Lord and Messiah. Through the resurrection God the Father has vindicated his only-begotten Son Jesus – has declared him to be in the right – and has made him both Lord and Messiah. God grant that we are as clear in our understanding of this mystery as Peter was in his, and let me be clear in this moment. The meaning of the resurrection is not simply that there is life after death and that if we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior – whatever we think that means – we will go to heaven to live forever with him when we die. Some of that is true, but it is not the meaning of the resurrection. I say again, with Peter, that the meaning of the resurrection is that God the Father has vindicated his only-begotten Son Jesus – has declared him to be in the right – and has made him both Lord and Messiah. And this means that the voices in heaven, the voices that spoke at the sound of the trumpet, proclaimed the great resurrection truth:
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15).
The kingdom of God that we pray for boldly as Christ our Savior taught us has indeed dawned in the resurrection. And we are to proclaim this meaning of the mystery of resurrection to all peoples and nations – not only with our lips but with our lives – calling all to baptism and holy obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself has commanded.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18-20, NRSV).
If Jesus is Lord and Messiah as the resurrection proclaims, then all the powers that claimed dominion and arrayed themselves against him were not: neither the political juggernaut of Rome wielding the power of the sword, nor the self-serving elite of the religious establishment and the zealous religious reformers – priest, Sadducee, scribe, and Pharisee – wielding the power of tradition and intimidation, nor the spiritual rulers and principalities of this fallen world – Satan himself – wielding the power of deception, temptation, and sin. In the resurrection Jesus triumphed over these and all other pretenders to his rightful authority – triumphed over them and shamed them – leading them captive in his victory procession from the tomb. If Jesus is Lord and Messiah as the resurrection proclaims, then death and hell have been defeated – though not yet destroyed – and must themselves bow before the one who was dead but now lives, before the one who harrowed hell and set free its prisoners.
If Jesus is Lord and Messiah as the resurrection proclaims, then all the powers that even now claim dominion and array themselves against him are not: political systems that wage wars of ideological and territorial aggression and that justify all manner of evil in the name of expediency; economic systems that disproportionately favor the wealthy – whether individual, corporate, or national – and that turn deaf ears to the cries of the poor – cries the Righteous Judge will surely hear; philosophical and educational systems that dismiss God as a quaint and embarrassing hypothesis for which they have no need; religious systems that oppress, brutalize, and terrorize – or that marginalize, vilify, or ignore – in the name of their god. To these pretenders to Jesus’s rightful authority – to these and to all others – we proclaim,
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Through his resurrection he has become both Lord and Messiah. Through his resurrection the kingdom of God has come not just within us as a personal, spiritual reality, but among us as a corporate, material, historical reality. And because of that, we have work to do.
Through his resurrection Christ launched this great kingdom venture, as only he could. Know this with certainty: the kingdom is – from start to finish – the work of God. We neither design it nor build it. But, following the blueprints left for us in scripture and sacrament and church, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we implement the victory of the resurrection and we build for the kingdom (N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope). Thus our brother Paul writes at the end of his great resurrection discourse in 1 Corinthians 15, in view of the resurrection of Christ and our similar resurrection to come,
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58).
Because of the resurrection we labor in the Lord. Because of the resurrection this labor is not in vain. If Christ rose again only to escape this material world into some disembodied, spiritual existence in heaven and if our only purpose is one day to follow him there then nothing in this life beyond personal faith and dogged obedience matters much at all. If this world is expendable – just a preparatory phase on the way to heaven or a failed experiment in material existence – then nothing in this life beyond personal faith and dogged obedience matters much at all. If people’s bodies are “base stuff,” mere empty shells that hold the true, spiritual spark of God – the soul – that longs to transcend the physical as a prisoner longs for escape from confinement, then nothing in this life beyond personal faith and dogged obedience matters very much. If this is true then, Paul notwithstanding, most all of our labor is in vain. But this is not what the church proclaims on this most holy night. This is not the historic faith of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic church. No: this is a resurgence of the gnosticism that so bedeviled the early church and which now threatens to compromise our message – a Gnosticism found not only in new age expressions of our faith but in rapture-obsessed, fundamentalist expressions as well.
We will have none of this. We proclaim Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of man – truly and fully human and truly and fully divine. We proclaim that this same Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. We proclaim that he lived among us as one of us and revealed to us the fullness of God incarnate. We proclaim that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. We proclaim that he descended to the dead. And we proclaim that on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures – rose again in full divinity and fully transformed humanity. We proclaim that he ascended into heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords and as our representative before God, his Father and our Father. We proclaim that in and through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection he has inaugurated God’s kingdom on earth and set us about implementing his victory and building for his kingdom. We proclaim that everything matters – that every act of justice and righteousness, every expression of compassion and mercy, every infusion of truth and beauty done in the name of the risen Lord builds for his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven and will stand in that last, great day when Christ returns and the new heaven and new earth are joined and God is all and in all. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Yes, Christ is risen and his resurrection proclaims him as both Lord and Messiah.
Yes, Christ is risen and his resurrection marks the advent of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Yes, Christ is risen and his resurrection is our commission to implement that resurrection and to build for that kingdom in acts of justice, righteousness, compassion, mercy, love, truth, and beauty. Know that, in the risen Christ, everything matters and no labor is in vain.
And, so again, with all the faithful in every time and place – saints in heaven and saints on earth – with myriads of myriads of angels and archangels, with apostles and martyrs, with cherubim and seraphim, with the elders and the living creatures around the throne, we take our place and raise our voices to proclaim,
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
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