Wow! What a night!
And we’re only half-way through.
Don’t you love stories
though? Probably you can remember when
you were a little child you had a favorite bedtime story. And maybe before you’d go to bed at night
you’d jump up into mom’s or dad’s lap and say, “Tell me a story again,
mommy.” She’d say, “Well I read the same
one to you the last thirty-five night.”
“I know mommy, read it again.”
And even though you knew the outcome of the story you still wanted to
hear it.
Look at the stories you’ve
listened to tonight. From
creation to resurrection and everything in between. And we know how it comes out. Maybe. Because it isn’t just the
stories of the gospels and scriptures that we heard tonight. We’ve heard them over and over again, but you
never heard them on this night before!
Oh, no.
So God is saying something
to you and me tonight through the telling of these stories. Because linked up with the beautiful stories
of scripture is the story of every one of us here tonight and you and I are
still writing our stories.
Creation. Every day God
is creating. In that beautiful story of
creation every time God creates God says in the same breath, “It’s very
good.” You are very good. Every day that you and I live and breathe and
walk this earth never forget that you are a creature of a loving, caring God
and you are very good.
We went through Exodus. We heard how they came through the
Isaiah proclaimed so
clearly, if you’re thirsty, come you’ll have your thirst quenched. And my word always go
forth from me and I will not let it be languished. It will always bring about what it says. And who’s the word? Jesus.
And it’s Jesus, the Risen Lord, is with you and me here tonight in such
a powerful, beautiful way.
Romans reminded us of
that. And so our
gospel as well. Romans says death has no more power over Jesus. So you and I have such a great hope given to
us tonight once again. Maybe you heard
it a thousand times before, but you never heard it on this day before. That God wants to say something so special to
you and to me, that death has no power over you. Not only physical death,
but think of all the other dyings that we have in our
lives. Emotional
ones, spiritual ones. The loss of a job, moving away, all those other little deaths that
we experience.
And we come here tonight
doing what? Seeking
something even deeper with the Lord.
And we have eight people who tonight are symbolizing that seeking in
such a powerful, beautiful way. You, our
elect and our catechumens, you have been making a journey over this last
year. You’ve chosen to take this journey
because you believe deep down in your heart that God called you to be here
tonight. And you stand before us with
your family and your friends and your sponsors and you say, “Yes, I choose
this, because I want to go deeper, to seek even more of my live with the
Lord.
I wonder if tomorrow morning
if some of us will not have the joy of seeing little children having an Easter
egg hunt. What do little kids do? You hide all those Easter eggs, right? And they run around and they’re trying to
find these eggs and they find one. And
they’re so happy. And they come, “I
found one, I found one”. And as soon and
they say that then they say, “Well, I gotta go find
another one.” They want them all. They want more. Until you finally say, “That’s it. You found all of them. There are no more.” Then you want to eat them, right? Never stop seeking. You and I tonight, we are seekers. We are seekers.
Just like in the gospel,
they went to the tomb to find what they thought would be the body of
Jesus. They were searching for something
more. Something to
hold onto. Something
to give them hope. And the angel
was there and said, “He’s not here. He’s
gone before you. He is risen.” Keep
searching. Keep seeking.
So your journey tonight
that’s brought you this far is just beginning.
It will never end. Not for the
eight of you who symbolize this for all of us, nor for
any of us here tonight. Our journey will
never end. Our seeking will never end
until we finally get to that wonderful place of eternity. But tonight we get to celebrate it in such a
beautiful, powerful way. \
We always say in our Creed,
“We believe in the resurrection and death and the life of the world to
come.” Powerful statement of what we are
doing tonight. Because,
as the scripture says, Christ doesn’t die any more. He is the Risen Lord. And it is the Risen Lord who comes to you and
me tonight in such a powerful, beautiful way to the eight of you to give you
His risen life. The Lord lives in all of
us. We believe in the resurrection of
the dead and the life of the world to come.
Let someone say “Amen”. I think we could add an Alleluia too, “Amen,
Alleluia.” There, that’s better.