After the worst possible thing: the best possible thing. No: better even than that. Far, far better. Still each year when we keep this Vigil, the newness of it, the magnitude of it, catches us as if in the throat. The explosion of new life. No, better than just new life. The utterly astonishing reversal. No, better than mere reversal. The good news. No, news better than good. He really died. It really happened. His life was extinguished, finished. He was dead: just a corpse, cold and lifeless, and buried in a tomb, and sealed up, and wept over. And then, tonight, with no witnesses, in the dark, as the world slept, he burst out into a life that consumes, that swallows up death forever. The newness and the power of this can only be compared with the newness and the power of the first Creation out of nothing; but this is greater, more astonishing, more miraculous. Let there be light, said God, and there was. But now this victorious light of Christ overwhelms all darkness. Darkness has no more power over it. This new light is now beyond the reach of darkness, or death, or sin, or the devil, forever.
Do not be afraid, said Jesus in majesty to John on Patmos. I am the first and the last. I am the one who is alive. I died, and behold! I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades (1:17).
Because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, we Christians have a well spring of joy within us that nothing can quench. Yes of course the Passion of Christ continues on in his Body until his return in glory. Just now we are assailed with news of ever mounting deaths from this disease which has engulfed the whole world. Already some of these deaths are touching us personally. So we could not forget, even if we wanted to, the fear and horror, the pain and anguish being experienced all around us. But Christ is now beyond fear, horror, pain and anguish, and his invincible life is our life, his victory our victory. He is with us, and in us, and before us, even as we share something of his Passion now. Yes, it remains for us to be moulded fully to the pattern of his death, but only in order to reach our consummated share in his resurrection from the dead (cf. e.g. Phil 3:11).
Tonight’s liturgy begins in the dark, in silent expectation, with a flickering flame signalling the beginnings of hope. Then with the Exsultet the Church lets out a great cry of triumph. And after that she invites us to step back, to settle down and patiently to read over some selections from the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Through them we contemplate how God’s plan of salvation, from the beginning, has been fulfilled, revealed, brought to perfection in Christ’s resurrection.
We began with the story of Creation, in all its wonder, and abundance, and goodness, culminating in the creation of man, and ending with a Sabbath rest. And we see how in Jesus all of that was taken up, and none of it wasted. He entered the world that was made through him; he redeemed it; in him it is re-made, and renewed, and glorified. Man who was made in God’s image is now remade in the image of Christ (Rm 8:29; 1 Cor 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18). As such, his destiny is to enter at last the eternal sabbath rest of heaven.
Then we read the strange story of the test of Abraham. Here Abraham stands, for the moment, as a figure of God the Father, who did not refuse us his Son, his only Son. The ram in the thicket is a figure of all the sacrifices of the Old Law. These animal sacrifices fulfilled the duty of divine worship under a temporary dispensation, until Christ would come to offer at last the definitive and perfect sacrifice. The sparing of Isaac is a hint, a foretaste, an allusion. Christ was not spared, but like Isaac he emerged from his ordeal alive. In him the divine Promise held fast, and the divine blessing was superabundantly transmitted. The multitudes touched by that blessing are indeed as many as the stars of heaven, or the grains of sand on the sea shore, and in Christ they possess indeed the gates of their enemies.
Whatever other readings are omitted tonight, the great drama at the Red Sea in Exodus has to be read. There we see Israel cornered, without defence against implacable enemies, her situation desperate, merely awaiting the blow. But God intervened by miracle, granting his people salvation, deliverance, victory. Their passing through water is a figure of baptism; the vanquished Egyptians figures of sin and the devil, even of death itself.
And so on, with readings from Isaiah and Baruch and Ezekiel: all of them rich and beautiful texts. Through them we marvel again at God’s fidelity to his word, once given. Through them we see how all the promises of the Old Testament seemed so full of hyperbole, yet in fact they fall short of what we are given tonight in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And after them all at last St. Paul is allowed to speak. His words, which are always so thrilling, so super-charged with meaning, in the context of tonight’s liturgy make us want to shout and dance and sing. Paul speaks in measured tones, but with an urgent message. He tells us what our baptism in Christ involves, and implies, and demands. We have died with Christ, in order that we may rise with him. In Christ we are given new life with God, new life free from sin. So we must be done with sin! We must be faithful! We must live our baptism, live our faith, live as befits Christians who are filled with the hope of glory. We must live as if we were truly and always straining ahead towards heaven!
St. Paul urges us to walk (Rm 6:4). But the women in tonight’s Gospel ran. So we should run, as fast as we can: run, as St. Benedict says, on the path of the commandments (HR Prol 49); run in the cause of the Gospel; run to sing God’s praises without restraint, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever (Ps 117:1).