The Service of Easter Vigil normally consists of four parts: the service of Light, the service of Lessons, Baptism, and the first Eucharist of Easter. In this very strange time in which we find ourselves, this time of disbursement, this time of exile from our church building, exile from our normal ways of gathering and being a church, we find that we cannot do the last portions of the Vigil. We cannot baptize, we cannot celebrate the Eucharist together. So we are going to end the service here.
And yet in this moment, in this very strange and dark time, the light of Christ is still shining. We have lit the first Paschal Light and it is with us. In this dark time we are reminded, as we heard the story of salvation in the lessons, we know that God is with us. As we heard about the God who made us in love, and the God who freed us in love, and the God who restored us in love, we know that the God of love is with us in this moment. In this dark and challenging time that we are in the midst of, with no knowledge as to how long it will last, nor what the weeks and months ahead may hold, we do know this: Christ’s light is shining in the midst of it as the God of love is present with us. That God who has always been there throughout all of history, is still here with us. As scripture so often repeats, we do not have a God of the dead, but a God of the living. We hear the stories of the past to remind us that that God then is the same God that is here with us now.
Our story, the one we are living in this very moment, is a story that joins with those others that we heard tonight. It is a story of God with us. It is the story of the light of Christ that shines so brightly in our lives.
My friends, keep your eyes on this light as we face these days. As we celebrate this Easter, keep your eyes on the horizon of our hope of Christ’s resurrection.
AMEN
