Homily for Easter Vigil 2008
In his recent speech "In order to form a more perfect union"
Barack Obama describes his first experience of a church service,
perhaps on Good Friday:
"People began to shout,
to rise from their seats and clap and cry out.
And in that moment - hope!
I heard something else at the foot of that cross.
Inside churches across the city,
I imagined the stories of ordinary black people
merging with the stories of David and Goliath,
Moses and Pharaoh,
Ezekiel's field of dry bones,
of the dying and rising of Jesus.
These stories of survival, freedom, and hope,
became our story, my story.
The blood that was spilled was our blood,
the tears our tears.
On this bright day,
our black church seemed once more a vessel
carrying the story of a people
into future generations and into a larger world…"
Tonight we have listened
to some of the most poignant and meaningful texts in all of scripture.
The greatest prefigurement of the Pascal season
is the relationship between Jesus' Passion
and the story of Exodus.
Christ, the Passover Lamb,
is sacrificed to save his people,
his life laid down on the cross.
Jesus continues to share his life with us in Eucharistic food.
The Jewish people have always understood Exodus
as the story of deliverance from slavery
and the creation as a people.
Saint Paul and other New Testament writings
speak about the resurrection
as a spiritual liberation from sin and the power of evil.
Black people, on the other hand,
dealing with the horrible reality of slavery and oppression,
understood both the Exodus and Jesus' resurrection
as stories of liberation -- Let my people go!
Free at last, free at last,
thank God almighty, we are free at last!
Free from slavery and oppression;
free for a life where justice and peace reign.
If we weave these two strands of liberation together
where does it take us?
First, resurrection faith is not a private devotion
intended only for my life.
The danger always is that we will try to understand our lives
in isolation from the lives of others.
The stories of redemption
always pull us back into the story of the community,
into the lives of others.
We weave the story of our redemption
into the story of the community,
the story of our universe.
There is a spaciousness, a largeness of heart,
a resilience in the story of a community.
Second, another danger of completely spiritualizing resurrection faith
is that we isolate its energy from the real suffering in the world:
the hunger, the violence, the exploitation, and war.
If we really believe that we are a New Creation in the Risen Christ,
then we need to have a working approach to the real issues of our time.
Whether it is the needs of the local poor and needy,
the needs of local immigrants or the Church in Tanzania,
we are called to reach out and to work for systemic change.
We understand these commitments as a result of our faith in the Risen Christ.
The liberation we have experienced is for all people.
Third, so often we sprint through Lent,
hurdle over Holy Week,
and collapse on Easter Sunday afternoon.
But we are meant to celebrate the whole 50 days of Easter
and absorb the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit.
The great antiphon for this whole season is
"Lord, send forth your Spirit
and renew the face of the earth."
The significance of Easter faith is so rich,
so multi-layered that we have to keep coming at from different sides.
Easter faith requires serious conversion.
The disciples only gradually understand
what has happened and its significance.
Tonight our song is full of Easter Alleluias.
Alleluia expresses a joy that cannot be captured in translation.
We sing it with jubilation,
in our own way, giving expression to the song and the hope
that are deep within each one of us.
that God will lift us up with the Risen Christ.
Abbot John Klassen, OSB
22 March 2008
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