Easter Vigil
April 7, 2012
The women on the Saturday after Jesus died
weren’t keeping a vigil. The disciples certainly weren’t. They had seen Him die
and were still in mourning over their loved one they thought would be with them
forever. We gather here on the Saturday between our observance of Good Friday,
the day Jesus died, and our celebration of Easter Sunday, the day Jesus rose.
We call our observance a vigil. How do we keep a vigil? Why do we keep a vigil?
You might recognize that the word ‘vigil’ is
related to the word ‘vigilant’. To be vigilant is to be watchful, to be ready. As
Christians we are called upon by our Lord to be ever vigilant; as long as we
breathe on this earth, as long as our Lord delays His return in glory on the
Last Day. We are to be watchful, vigilant.
This remains true today even as our observance
of this day that we call the Easter Vigil has our observing of it for a
specific reason. The women on the Saturday after their Lord died were waiting
for Sunday to come so that they could resume the embalming of His body. We are
here this evening knowing everything that happened. We know that He was in the
tomb on Saturday. We know He rose from His tomb early on Sunday morning. We
know that He died and rested in the tomb and rose from the grave all for the
securing of salvation for the world.
This is what we know. And this is the focus of
our vigil. If you think about it, it really is the focus of our ever being
vigilant throughout our lives as Christians. The problem, of course, is that we
so often aren’t vigilant. We forget. We get caught up in day-to-day affairs. We
get caught up in the desires of our sinful flesh. We perhaps aren’t aware that
our lives as Christians are to be ones of vigilance, ever watchful for the day
when our Lord will return in glory. If we are aware perhaps we’re not aware of
how to be vigilant.
They way we do it is by receiving the grace and
gifts of God as He gives them to us in Word and Sacrament. By daily dying and
rising; dying to our sinful flesh in repentance and rising to new life in our
Baptism. By being in God’s Word in daily devotions and weekly in Bible Study.
Basically, we keep the vigil, that is, we live
lives of watchfulness and vigilance, by being in those things our Lord has
given us where He instills in us the watchful and vigilant mind and heart which
has its focus on and joy in our Lord who came in order to go to the cross, who
rested in the tomb, who rose victoriously from the grave, and who will come
again in glory to welcome us into the eternal glory He has prepared for us.
Being vigilant isn’t something along the lines of being a monk in a solitary
setting. It is much more along the lines of being who you are, where God has
called you to serve, and living in the grace of your Lord as He gives it to you
in His Gospel through preaching and His Sacraments. Amen.
SDG
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