'Holy Mother Church invites each one of us to be strengthened in our resolve to live the new life of Christ'
Dear Brothers and Sisters, we are in the midst of celebrating what the Church calls the Mother of Vigils – and the liturgy is lengthy. We should not be afraid of this: it reflects the fact that we need time to absorb what is being said to us, time to reflect upon the wonderful mystery which is being placed before us because we are celebrating something momentous, something life changing.
Our celebration centres on the person of Christ: Christ the second person of the Trinity who was born in time to accomplish our salvation. Christ who has risen. Christ who sends the Spirit to change us – if we wish to be changed.
Tonight we understand the Scriptures which have been placed before us in the light of Christ. Hence at the very beginning of the vigil, as I marked the Paschal Candle, I said, ‘Christ yesterday and today; the beginning and their end; Alpha and Omega; all time belongs to him and all the ages; to him be glory and power through every age for ever. Amen’.
The passages from the Sacred Scriptures which we have heard represent the edited highlights of the story of salvation. They began with the story of the creation of a world which was good. We do not read of the entry of evil into this world – but all the readings which follow only make sense if we take it as read that evil has entered our world and has had a profound effect upon each and every one of us. And so we read of the importance of obedience to God in the story of Abraham and Isaac; we hear about the saving event of the Exodus when God called a people to be his own, living in obedience to his commandments; we hear of the Exile of this chosen people in Babylon in the readings from the prophet Isaiah.
Let us pause for a moment at the fifth reading from the prophet Isaiah for it has something special to say to us tonight. Let me draw one or two key phrases back to you memory: ‘Listen, listen to me, … Pay attention, come to me; listen, and your soul with live. … See, I have made of you a witness to the peoples, … Seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near. Let the wicked man abandon his way, … Let him turn back to the Lord who will take pity on him’ (from Isaiah 55.1-11). These words are addressed to the Chosen People in Babylon – but they could just as well be addressed to our Church, to you and to me, for we are the Church. Let us note that these words are addressed to everyone, good and bad, rich and poor. They are addressed most of all to those of us who are sinners.
Our Church is a church of sinners. It is not a fashionable church; it is not a comfortable, safe place for people who are free from sin. Whilst it is true that most of us are pretty mediocre sinners, we should acknowledge that it is also a place for some quite outstanding sinners. And the same message is addressed to every one of us: Listen to the Word of God; turn back to the Lord; abandon your wicked ways; you are to be a witness to the peoples – and we might add here that many will reject our witness, and sometimes they will attack us.
In the course of past years, dear friends, will have listened to the accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus and so we know what his teaching involves. Yesterday we heard of his passion and death and saw him laid in the tomb. And so we arrive at the moment recalled by Luke when the women went to the tomb to place spices on the body of Christ. These faithful women were moved by love. They had seen the dead body of the Lord taken down from the cross and bundled unceremoniously into the tomb. Now they went to care for the body of the Lord. When they arrived the entrance stone was rolled away and they found themselves in the presence of angels; the tomb itself was quite empty, for the Lord had risen.
In the coming days we shall hear more of the risen Lord. The tomb was empty because Jesus was alive. He was not alive as you and I are alive. He was not alive as Lazarus was alive. He was both the same man the Apostles had known before his crucifixion and also different, radically different. And not surprisingly it took time for them to understand some of the implications of this most extraordinary event. It is for this reason that we must turn to Saint Paul to hear a mature understanding of what the resurrection means for us.
In his letter to the Romans the Apostle tells us that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the promise that we, too, shall rise again. He emphasises, therefore, the importance of our oneness with Christ: we must be one with him in his death so that we may share his new life. For Paul this is the meaning of baptism. In baptism we share sacramentally in the death of the Lord; in our post-baptismal life we begin to share in the resurrection of Christ. Thus in our post-baptismal life we are already on the road which will take us through the gateway of death into the presence of God himself. There is a sense in which the words found in the first Preface of Christian Death, ‘Lord, for your faithful people life has changed not ended. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven’ should already apply to us. Our life should have already changed. Our baptism should mean that sin no longer has a hold over us and that everlasting life with the Father is already in sight.
The difficulty with this hope, this promise, as we all know, is that we are not always faithful to the call which is addressed to us: hence the central importance of the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist to strengthen us on our pilgrim way through this life. And it is that this reason that the Church offers us tonight the opportunity to renew our baptismal promises. Gathered together in the light of Christ; having listened to the story of the salvation of the human race, our salvation as well as that of past ages and ages yet to come, holy Mother Church invites each one of us to be strengthened in our resolve to live the new life of Christ.
This renewal of baptismal vows is not the repetition of an empty formula. Tonight we cannot help but be aware that in recent weeks the terrible failings of some members of the clergy in our Church have been headline news. We know that all the very many apologies which have been made cannot really undo the damage which has been done to many lives. Many of us in a rather inchoate, unformed, way feel tainted by the sins of men and women we have never known but who shared with us in the Catholic Faith. In this renewal of baptismal promises let us take responsibility for our own lives. Let us invite the Spirit to enter us and transform us so that we may be recreated in the image and likeness of Christ. Let us pray that our lives may renew the Church so that Christ may be plainly seen in our world today.
And so let us now stand so that we may bless the water which will be used for baptism in the Easter season and then let us renew in heartfelt words our personal commitment to follow our Risen Lord.
Fr Abbot