Christopher Snook: Sermon for the Easter Vigil

Christopher Snook, April 3 2021

“Rise up, my love, and come away, for winter is over….”

If you know the Scriptures, you will know that in the sacred writings from Genesis at the beginning of the Bible to the Apocalypse of St John the Divine at the end, darkness is a complicated thing.

On the one hand, according to some of the very first images of the Hebrew scriptures, darkness is a place for hiding. This at least was the suggestion made by the Church at the very beginning of Lent when our imaginations were drawn back to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The story of their first act of disobedience will be familiar in one way or another to all of us, but what matters for our purposes this evening is what we read in the Book of Genesis following their first act of what St Athanasius calls their self-lust. After eating from the forbidden tree, we read that Adam and Eve hear the Lord walking in the cool of the evening; and at the sound of his footsteps they withdraw into the shadows cast by the trees at the edge of the garden. Where are you?, calls God. Where are you? Lent began, then, with the suggestion that whatever else the history of humanity might be it is manifestly a history lived in the cool of the evening, as darkness falls -- and lived more specifically in those shadows at the edge of paradise. For students of the Foundation Year Program this darkness at the edge of Paradise will be familiar – it is Augustine spying the promised land but unable to step towards it; it is Dante in the dark woods with a vision of Mt Purgatory rising above the tress; it is perhaps the secular messianism of Karl Marx; it is TS Eliot’s Waste Land recollections of heroic self-sacrifice. Lent began by placing us in shouting distance of paradise, you might say, but in a darkness so profound it divided us not only from God but from one another and even ourselves. Where are you? God calls to Adam and Eve. And of course this is not simply God’s question for Adam, it is the question friends and lovers ask one another all the time; it is a question some of us ask of ourselves; it is the agonizing question children ask their parents in those moments they seem emotionally & spiritually to disappear….

And yet if we know the Scriptures we will also recall that darkness is not only a place where bad things happen. The sun sets to be sure, but for the Scriptures darkness is also the place of an anticipation that is time after time connected not with sunset but sunrise and, more especially, with marriage. Consider for example that the most commonly used title for God in the Hebrew Scriptures is not Father, but “Bridegroom”; or call to mind the number of times Jesus himself suggests in parables and in mysterious sayings that he comes under cover of a spiritual darkness like a bridegroom to his bride. This nuptial imagery finds its source and centre in the extraordinary love song in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Song of Solomon. There the story of God and the soul is framed as the story of a love affair that takes place largely at night: “By night on my bed I sought the one I love,” sings the soul to her spouse. Even that first witness of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene, comes we are told early in the morning and crucially while it is yet dark. So, the night is a place for love, according to the Scriptures.

Both of these darknesses – of betrayal and of love – have been present with us for the entirety of Holy Week. We have certainly seen the darkness of betrayal in the story of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss; we have seen it in the voices of the crowds who called for the death of the innocent Christ; we have seen it in Peter’s denials of Jesus and the disciples’ abandoning their Lord. We have seen this darkness and have been invited to find there the whole history of the world’s betrayals of love – indeed, to see even our own betraying and being betrayed.

But somehow, mysteriously, within this darkness there has been that other, more profound, darkness in which we stand tonight – the darkness where lovers meet. For in this week of betrayals, the Church suggests that Christ has been manifesting himself over and over again as our Bridegroom – as the lover of our souls come to woo us wherever we seem most distant from him. For the betrayed, he is betrayed; for the lonely, he is isolated; for the anxious, he goes to Gethsemane; for the dead, he dies; for the sinful he is, in the words of the Scriptures, made sin. And so tonight we stand not so much in the darkness of all love’s betrayals, but in the darkness of anticipation. We are gathered not as the sun goes down – as it did upon Adam and Eve as the biblical narrative began – but in anticipation of the sun’s rising – which is in some sense where the biblical narrative concludes.

For at least 1600 years Christians have lit a flame on this night. The candle represents Jesus; and we begin our Easter joy with a vision of his light rising in the darkness. As the ancient Exultet says (and as we will sing after we have lit the new fire): Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth, bright with a glorious splendor, for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King. Rejoice and be glad now, Mother Church, and let your holy courts, in radiant light, resound with the praises of your people.

This lighting of the new fire, this chanting of the ancient Exsultet – in all of it, Christ is saying to each one of us -- each of us who has committed our own betrayals of love, each of us who has been betrayed in any number of ways -- Jesus will say to each of us in the words of the ancient love song: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come … Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.”

Tonight, his light and life are the response to the world’s darkness and death.

The liturgy will begin in the light of the Paschal candle; we will continue with the reading of the passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which, for the Church, anticipate Christ’s great victory over evil; and we will continue still with the celebration of Holy Baptism – that unique moment in which the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising is applied to individual souls – and then we will make our first Communion of Easter, receiving again the crucified, risen and ascended Body of Our Lord in the Bread and Wine of Holy Communion. The liturgy will be long because love suffers long; the liturgy will be sensual because our love dies and rises in the flesh; the liturgy will be joyful because tonight, we have come to a wedding Feast; tonight we have come to have our darkness turned to light, our mourning to joy, our heaviness to gladness, our fasting to feasting.

On this night, 1600 years ago, St John Chrysostom preached a sermon that will be read in Byzantine churches throughout the world this Easter. We conclude with his words…

If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast. If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; because he shall in nowise be deprived thereof. If any have delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing. If any have tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness; for the Lord, who is jealous of his honor, will accept the last even as the first; He gives rest unto him who comes at the eleventh hour, even as unto him who has wrought from the first hour.

And He shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first; and to the one He gives, and upon the other He bestows gifts. And He both accepts the deeds, and welcomes the intention, and honors the acts and praises the offering. Wherefore, enter you all into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first, and likewise the second. You rich and poor together, hold high festival. You sober and you heedless, honor the day. Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith: Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness. let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains. It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.