Easter Vigil (Fr. Robinson)

Much has happened in the Body of Christ since Easter of last year.  There is now a new Archbishop of Canterbury.  Canterbury is in England and the Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion.   Archbishop Sarah Mullally was enthroned on the Chair of St. Augustine of Canterbury on the Feast of the Annunciation, the 25th of March.  It was an especially historic occasion as Archbishop Sarah is the first woman to head the Communion.
 
 And that was just 10 months after Bishop Robert Francis Prevost became Pope Leo XIV.  That was historic because Prevost was the first American elected to the papacy.  And, he is a native of Illinois!
 
And here at Emmanuel, within the last year we have received a new Rector, Fr. Zack Guiliano, and his wife Melissa; and more recently we have a new Curate, Fr. Joe Roberts, and his wife Cassie, and their amazing children, Jacob, Logan, and Holly.
 
A lot has happened over the last year!  And it all started some 2000 years ago. 
 
The disciples had spent three intensive years with Jesus because they thought he was the Messiah.  They understood these years to be a preparation for the time when Jesus would usher in a new kingdom that would make King David’s monarchy pale by comparison.  And they would be the ones Jesus would use to establish his rule.
 
It would be a kingdom like no other—a kingdom characterized by justice and peace, a kingdom free of poverty and disease, where God truly would reign.  They had witnessed what they thought was the beginning of that kingdom, when their Lord and Master rode into Jerusalem on an ass, in fulfillment of Messianic prophecy.
 
And then it all quickly came to an end.  Jesus had been betrayed by one of their own.  He was arrested, quickly tried, and put to death like so many other would-be messiahs.  He had been shamed, disgraced, discredited, shown to be an imposter—he and his followers squelched by the powerful, cruel, and efficient Roman government.
 
As one preacher puts it, “His men followers had left him completely in the lurch. They had quailed from Jesus during his darkest hour, faster than a politician can ditch an unpopular position.”  There was no doubt in their minds.  It was finished.  The task at hand was to distance themselves as quickly as possible from being Jesus’ followers, get over their grief, and get on with their lives.
 
Then some women -- St. Matthew says the women were Mary Magdalene and the other Mary -- discovered the empty tomb, and a messenger who told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  For several days thereafter the risen Christ appeared to some 500 people, even eating and drinking with some of them.
 
There have been skeptics from the beginning, St. Thomas being the most famous, although when he did see the risen Christ he made the greatest statement of faith ever made: “My Lord and my God!”  St. Paul encountered persons in the Church at Corinth who did not believe in the resurrection.  In his first letter to them he writes, “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.”
 
The witness of all of the apostles is that Jesus was raised from the dead.  They based their ministries on it.  They staked their lives on it.  Pascal, the French mathematician and Christian philosopher, said, “The hypothesis that the apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus’ death and conspiring to say that he had risen from the dead.  This means attacking all the powers that be.  The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery.  One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures, and death, and they would all have been lost.”
 
Instead, the resurrection brought about a burst of activity that sent apostles throughout the Roman Empire, establishing communities of faith wherever they went.  They were willing to endure hardships, imprisonment, torture, and even martyrdom for their belief.  The resurrection has been proclaimed ever since as the most important, most fundamental belief of the Church.
 
This most powerful element of our faith is proclaimed every times we say the creeds, and in many of our prayers, for we end so many of our prayers “through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with (the Father) and the Holy Spirit.”  And this day, the annual celebration of the resurrection, is the day when Christians of even the most minimal of faith come to worship.
 
I believe in the resurrection most of all because I know the resurrected Lord in my own life, and in the lives of others.  That presence is the most powerful, truest reality in this life, and that presence confirms the witness of the Church over the ages.  In other words, you, and Christians like you, lead me to faith and continually strengthen that faith.  I visit with a member of the parish who hasn’t had an easy time of it lately; I hear her tell me of her relationship with Jesus, and see the holiness in her life, her trust in Jesus, and I’m blessed. And my faith in the risen Christ is strengthened.
 
I talk with business persons in our parish, see the integrity with which they go about their businesses, and hear them talk, sometimes with tears in their eyes, about their walk with Christ—and my faith in the risen Christ is strengthened.
 
People living according to their faith in a culture that is faithless; integrity in the midst of hypocrisy, charity in a society that is self-serving; people living Christ-centered lives when it would be much easier, and more natural, and more generally accepted to lead self-centered lives.  These things ring true, and bear witness to the resurrection.
 
The risen Lord is the reality that propelled the apostles to live and die for Christ.  That is the reality that Christians have experienced through the ages.  It’s the reality which our new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, Pope Leo the Fourteenth, Fr. Zack, and Fr. Joe, and their families will proclaim in myriad ways, both in word and deed.  May you and I live in the power of the resurrection this day and all the days of our lives.

Jesus Christ is risen today.  Alleluia.   Our triumphant holy day.  Alleluia.
Sing we to our God above.  Alleluia.  Praise eternal as his love.  Alleluia