Easter Vigil Sermon

O Loving God, by the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ, you conquered sin, put death to flight, and gave us the hope of everlasting life: Redeem all our days by this victory; forgive our sins, banish our fears, make us bold to praise you and to do your will; and steel us to wait for the consummation of your kingdom on the last great Day; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Tonight we celebrate Jesus resurrection. The word “resurrection” comes from a Greek word, which means “to stand again.” The resurrection is God standing again even after the tragic evil of the cross, for death is never the final word in God’s story, for our God is a God of life and love and hope. We are joined with Christ in the experience of his resurrection , for our failures and losses are not the last word for us as God’s power can lift us out of the pit of death and to stand again in new life.

Watch a short video on Easter… (a video series we had done for our Lenten Supper & Study)

Out of the stale darkness, he rises into the light. This is our future.

Our Christian lives are resurrected lives, we stand again in God’s light.

“We, like newborn infants, are learning to walk in this new kind of life. It is a life that does not fear death. It does not seek fame or fortune so to keep death from knocking at the door. Christians are called to learn to live the Kingdom of the Resurrected Christ. This means living in a world of hope that pushes away the skepticism of this world. It means building on a faith that God is restoring all things new, and making a place for all of humanity. It means trusting that deep and lasting relationships will exist to push back broken commitments and lost trust.

Resurrection means a standing up for all humanity, not just in the next life, but in this world right now. This is the difference that Christ’s victory has made in this world. Without the resurrection this world would be a much darker place. Because of the resurrection, people like Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa, and many others had the courage to stand up to oppression and injustice to create, with Jesus, a world of peace, a world of hope.

This is not to say that every moment of a person’s life is this kind of resurrection moment, but God showed us in the resurrection that life could not be swallowed up in the tomb. It presses forward, into our lives. How can you live in this kind of new world, in the Kingdom of the Resurrected Christ?

There is still plenty to be done and Christ invites us to join him, to stand again in this redeeming work of recreating God’s new dream in our world today.” (Phuc Luu)

Alleluia. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.