The Exsultet (so beautifully chanted tonight by Ian) tells us our story:
This is the night when God brought our forbearers out of bondage in Egypt.
The night when all who believe in Jesus are freed from sin and restored to grace.
The night when Christ broke the bonds of death and rose victorious from the grave.
On this Night of Nights as we’re all gathered together here at St. George, I want us to hear a poem by Ann Weems. It’s called, “The Story and the Child.”
The child comes,
and we dye eggs
and make a cake
and decorate.
“Why are we doing this?”
he asks.
“Because,” I answer,
“Life is about to happen,
and on Sunday morning
we’ll catch stars.”
He looks at me,
quizzically at first,
and then grins.
It’s then I ask him
to tell me the story.
The only way he’ll learn
is to tell it himself.
The only way we’ll learn
is to tell it again . . .
and again . . . to the child.
Tonight we’re telling the story, as we tell it year after year on this night. It’s the story of Salvation History. It’s the love story between God and God’s people. Someone said that “God just loves stories, that’s why God made people!” This story is one we tell a bit of every week at church as we hear the lessons, sing the hymns, and reflect on their meaning. But at the Easter Vigil, we hear more of the story. And we start with the beginning. The Creation, when God makes all things. and makes them all GOOD. Then we move to that really essential and core story of the Easter Vigil…The Crossing of the Red Sea. It’s when God’s people leave the slavery of Egypt and move into the freedom and challenges of the Wilderness.Then comes The Valley of the Dry Bones. In his vision, the Prophet Ezekiel sees bones coming together—enfleshed, breathing! Those who have died live again!
And finally we hear the story of The Gathering of God’s People. After years of exile in Babylon, God’s people return to their beloved Jerusalem. The Prophet Zephaniah reminds them of their need for religious renewal…not pie-in-the-sky, otherworldly renewal. It’s the renewal of this world he’s concerned with so that it reflects God’s vision of peace, justice, and freedom from oppression. It’s a world where God may sing because God’s people are singing!
Hopefully in the midst of all these ancient stories, we realize they are our stories as well. They tell us why we were created. How we too can get bound up in slavery to a variety of things…addictions, and how God can free us of that. They tell us how God can guide us through the wilderness. How at times we may feel like a bag of useless bones. Dried up. Living but partly living. Then God can breathe New Life into us, so that gathered together, we can help renew the world and bring in God’s reign on earth. These are YOUR stories and MY stories—All bound up together with God’s on-going love story.
And in the midst of all our stories tonight is THE CANDLE. The Paschal Candle. It is a central symbol of the Easter Season. In the Exsultet Ian sang, “All you who stand by this marvelous and holy flame, pray with me to God the almighty, For the grace to sing the worthy praise of this great light.” In its own way, the Paschal Candle tells God’s Story /Our Story as well.
The name of this candle certainly gives us a clue about the stories it symbolizes, as “Paschal” means “Passover.” It reminds us of when the Angel of Death was sent to slay all first-born male children in Egypt. Then the Angel passed over the sons of the Hebrew slaves because they were God’s chosen people. And so to this day, our brothers and sisters who are Jewish celebrate the Feast of the Passover during the same time we Christians celebrate Easter, because, according to the Gospels, the first Holy Week occurred during the Passover.
The Paschal Candle also reminds us of when God helped the Hebrew people pass over the wilderness, leading them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
The Candle is a central reminder of Easter, when Jesus passed over from the death of Good Friday to the life of Easter. And so we’ll burn the candle for the 50 days of the Easter season.
We also burn this candle when we baptize someone into the body of Christ. At baptism, we pass over from our old life into our new life with Jesus. “We are buried with Christ in his death and raised with him in his glorious resurrection.” We share in his Resurrection Power!
Finally we burn the Paschal Candle at funerals. It reminds us of our Christian hope: The person has passed over from mortal death into the eternal life God promises through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
So as we “Sing the worthy praise of this great light,” I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am personally to see this white, bright, sturdy, straight Paschal Candle here at St. George’s this evening. A few weeks ago when I was in the St. James’ building with our Insurance Broker, I noticed our Paschal Candle had melted and bent over. It had come to rest, in fact, on the credence shelf right by the baptismal font. It was hard to look at that helpless Paschal Candle…all melted and bent over…because of all the things it symbolizes, all the things I’ve been speaking about tonight. The candle symbolically embodies the sacred stories, and it helps us tell the story over and over again.
Whenever someone is baptized, their stories are added to The Story, and so The Story is changed, because we’ve added a page and we tell it in a new way. That’s why it’s so important for the children in the congregation to gather around the font at a baptism and to stand in the light of the Paschal Candle. That way, they can see the story as it unfolds. And as the new lines are written, they can start telling the story themselves.
On this holy night, “When wickedness is put to flight and sins are washed away,” we renewed our Baptismal Vows. By doing that, our personal life stories, and our stories as community, began a new chapter in The Story of Salvation History. It’s the story that matters, and we do have our stories! We’ve told them tonight.
We’ve added to them tonight. We’re empowered by them tonight. It’s the story that matters, and a melted candle cannot take that away!
So as we dye our eggs and decorate our cakes, because (the Easter) “Life is about to happen,” let’s teach our children to tell the story as we tell the story to them…over and over again. So that as we leave here tonight and wake in the morning, we too will “catch stars” and share in Christ’s Resurrection Power! Amen.
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