Easter Vigil
Cycle B
April 4, 2015 7:30pm
Saint Margaret Parish, Bel Air
God’s Story
Tonight,
we hear God’s story – or maybe we should say God’s story about God and us.
The Story of Goodness
The Word of God begins with the story of “the beginning, when God creates the heavens
and the earth.”
And as each part of creation is brought into being, we keep
hearing: “God saw how good it was.” “God saw how good it was.”
The repetition of these words grabs our attention and they call
us to approach creation positively, to see the goodness that is here. One Catholic scholar speaks of the need to
affirm what he calls human flourishing.
His point is that wherever we see accomplishments that
enable human beings to flourish – in technology, in art, in health care, in
food distribution, in the provision of potable water – wherever we see human
flourishing, we are to acknowledge its goodness. It may not be done explicitly in the name of
God or of Jesus.
But if it promotes human flourishing, it is good. The story of creation calls us to see this.
The Story of Our Response – 1
God’s
story then tells us that we have sometimes not acted as God wants.
Sin
has entered our world. The second
reading gives a glaring example of this in the oppression of the Israelites.
Thankfully,
the story goes that God frees the Israelites from slavery through the
Exodus. So, God once tamed the water in
the act of creation, and here God tames the water again and allows his people
to pass through it safely.
And
in doing this, God wants us to remember the past – the social injustice in
Egypt. One reason God calls us to
remember this is that social sin can still happen.
We
see it, for example, in racism, in the allowing of poverty, and sometimes in
the hatred of one religious group for another.
Positively, God calls us to be agents for justice and peace and human
flourishing.
The Story of Our Response – 2
God’s story goes on to remind us of personal sin.
The prophet Ezekiel in our third reading tells God’s
people that they cannot just blame others all the time. They too, personally and individually, have
disregarded God’s ways.
Ezekiel promises that God will sprinkle clean water upon
them to cleanse them. So once again,
water is at work in God’s action.
Here, God expects his people to accept responsibility for their
behavior. It might be tearing down the
good name of others or being unfaithful to the responsibilities of our calling
in life.
God expects us to admit of personal sin. Positively, he expects us to do what we can
for the human flourishing of ourselves and of those in our personal lives.
The Story of
Resurrection
Ezekiel’s promise of new life
finds its fulfillment in Jesus.
God’s story in tonight’s gospel
announces Jesus’ resurrection. Saint
Mark carefully says, “Very early, on the
first day of the week…”
This first day hearkens back to
the first day of creation in Genesis. It
tells us that a new creation is happening here.
We even see this newness when
the angel proclaims the resurrection to women and tells them to go and tell
others. This happens in a culture where
the testimony of women did not count.
So something dramatically new is
happening here. And, of course, this
something new is Jesus risen from the dead.
This is what Paul proclaims tonight. He tells us that now we are given the
transforming water of baptism.
Through baptism, we are attached
to Jesus Christ and this attachment brings us a new life. It is the beginning of living our human journey
with the One who is our life and our resurrection.
So, that is tonight’s story:
God’s story about God and us. That is
what we are now celebrating and renewing.
