The Great Reverse: Easter Vigil (April 8, 2023)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Here we are, tonight at the Easter Vigil which is one of the most significant and sacred nights of the Church year. On Maundy Thursday, we commemorated the Last Supper and the institution of the Holy Eucharist, we reflected on the betrayal of our Lord by Judas Iscariot into the hands of the Jewish authorities, and we stripped our altar, setting up an Altar of Repose in the back of the Church. Yesterday, for Good Friday, we walked with our Lord to the Cross by doing Stations of the Cross. Then we gathered again to intercede for the Church and the world at the feet of his Cross, venerating that beautiful image of the crucified Lord as we meditated on his sacrifice for us. We read the reproaches of God to his people, reflecting on his faithfulness throughout salvation history and our propensity to unfaithfulness. And finally, we communed using the pre-sanctified Hosts that we reserved on the Altar of Repose. Holy week is a week of two reversals: the first occurred on Maundy Thursday as we transitioned from Palm Sunday to Good Friday. We went from a triumphant procession, the people following Jesus, to his betrayal unto death. But tonight, we inaugurate of a second reversal: Death has been trampled by death, hell has been harrowed, Christ is risen! And so tonight, we meditate on what our Savior has accomplished for us.

To that end, our Epistle passage this evening by St. Peter begins with an exhortation: “For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.” It is better for us to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness than to be persecuted for committing an injustice or acting unrighteously. This is how we should behave because it was the standard set by our Lord. Earlier in 1 Peter 2:23 he describes the Passion of our Lord “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:” This imagery clearly draws from the Suffering Servant of Isaiah: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, Yet he opened not his mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, So he openeth not his mouth” (53:7).

As fallen creatures, we owe God a double debt. We already owed God all that we are and all that we do based on the fact that he created us because we cannot exist without him. But also, we sinned. And our sin compounds a debt that already included everything: we acted against our Creator. The implication is that there is no just way for us, on our own, to repair the relationship that we ruptured all the way back in the Garden. But this is the profound beauty of the Gospel: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins. The just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” Christ is fully God and fully man. There is no stain of sin in him. In his Incarnation, he exemplified perfect justice and goodness; but, when those of us trapped in the darkness encounter light, we often shrink away from it, or worse, lash out in violence to extinguish it. That’s what happened to our Lord. When God became flesh and tabernacled among us, the world that was made by him knew him not. And so the perfect God-man endured persecution and death for the sake of righteousness. Righteous deeds deserve to be rewarded, do they not? But what do you give the man who is perfect and has everything? The Father bestows infinite merit of the Son to those who are in him who are “sons of God” and “heirs in heaven” (John 15:5). In John 15, the image used to describe our relationship to Christ is that of fruit on the vine. Just as fruit receives the nutrients it requires to survive from the vine on which they grow, so those us of who are in Christ are enlivened through the merits won by Christ our Lord.

By his death, then, Christ reveals to us God’s love for the whole world. Many Church Fathers and even the Books of Common Prayer pick up on the significance of the fact that, in being crucified, Christ died with his arms outstretched on the hard wood of the cross. They interpret this as Christ beckoning all to come within his loving embrace. But there’s another way he demonstrates his love for us and it can be found in the answer to the question “what was Jesus’ soul doing for the time his body was dead?” In the Apostle’s Creed, we profess that he “was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell.” It is this aspect of the story that St. Peter focuses on in verse 19 of our reading this evening: “he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” St. Cyril of Alexandria details the dramatic scene for us: “In order to deliver all those who would believe, Christ taught those who were alive on earth at the time of his Incarnation, and these others acknowledged him when he appeared to them in the lower regions, and thus they too benefited from his coming. Going in his soul, he preached to those who were in hell, appearing to them as one soul to other souls. When the gatekeepers of hell saw him, they fled; the bronze gates were broken open, and iron chains were undone. And the only-begotten Son shouted with authority to the suffering souls, according to the word of the New Covenant, saying to those in chains: ‘Come out!’ and to those in darkness: ‘Be enlightened.’” This is a beautiful picture of what has come to be known as the harrowing of hell. In many artistic depictions of it, a multitude is led out of hell by Christ, usually depicted as holding hands with Adam and Eve. How much does God love humanity? Enough to die for them. Enough to descend to the dead to save souls.

How do we receive the merits won by Christ then? How are we unified to him? The answer given to us by Scripture is the Sacrament of Baptism. To help us better understand, St. Peter turns to the Old Testament story of the Noahic flood. God told Noah about the impending flood and instructed him to build an ark. Noah’s contemporaries had the long duration of time while the ark was being build to get on board and be saved, reflecting the patience of God. One writer has described God’s patience by saying he’s like the French…it takes him hundreds of years to get angry. It’s also important to remember how wicked the people were in the antediluvian world. So much so that the author of Genesis tells us that “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” But the invitation to Baptism is open to all. Andreas, a 7th century monk, points out the parallel between the Noahic flood and baptism in that the water of the flood punished evil while the good were saved through the ark. Baptism puts to death our old man and raises us in newness of life. Baptism translates us into the ark; the ark is Christ, the ark is his Church. In Baptism, we are brought into the Church, made members of his Body. And so St. Peter tells us that “Baptism doth also now save us.” Baptism is not just a symbol for something else that saves us. Water baptism is not different from some sort of separate internal or “spirit” baptism as some have called it. There is one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and that baptism saves us by bringing us into Christ, not because it removes dirt from our bodies but sin from our souls, bestowing in us “a good conscience towards God.”

Christ is the conqueror who on this day has won victory over the principalities. Christ is the conqueror who on this day has despoiled Satan. Christ is the conqueror who on this day has robbed Death. Christ is the conqueror who on this day has overcome the power of Sin. To the victor go the spoils. This victory brings great exaltation: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:” St. Peter tells us: “Christ is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.” This allows us to join St. Paul in his taunt of death: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God which gaveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is risen!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.