The following is the sermon preached by The Rev. Karen C. Barfield, Chaplain of the Episcopal Center at Duke, at the Great Vigil of Easter celebrated at St. Joseph's by the two missions. The texts were Romans 6:3-11 and Luke 24:1-12.
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3)
The last congregation I served in Memphis before coming to North Carolina was a fairly large Episcopal Church. On average there were several hundred people there each Sunday morning.
On the day of the bishop’s visitation there were several folks lined up to be baptized.
In one family both brother and sister were to be baptized that morning. The little girl was about 2 years old, but her older brother was about 10 and was very inquisitive and excited.
As the bishop met with those to be baptized during the Sunday school time, this boy sat right next to the bishop and asked all kinds of questions. He was excited about his baptism and was all ready to go.
During the service when it was time for him to be baptized, the bishop called him over to the font, but the boy clung to his mother’s side for dear life.
He looked at the bishop and said, “I don’t want to be baptized.”
As the bishop tried to coax him over, it was clear that he would have to be peeled away from his mother’s skirt.
The bishop, in his wisdom said, “Your baptism is supposed to be a time of joy. If you don’t want to be baptized, you don’t have to be.”
And that was that.
Later in the service when the boy and his family came to the altar rail for Communion, as the bishop approached him, the boy said, “Well, I guess I blew my chance, huh?”
The bishop smiled and said, “No, you have another chance. Meet me at the font after the service, and I’ll baptize you then.”
The boy, smiling, received his blessing and returned to his pew.
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
That Sunday morning did that boy cling to his mother’s side out of embarrassment or stage fright before the large crowd gathered in the church?
Or did he have some inkling that what he was about to do was as frightening as being buried with Christ in his death?
Did he know that his life was about to change forever –
that new demands would be placed on him that he might not be able to meet?
Perhaps a little of both.
In my experience, children “get it” – they understand things we barely begin to comprehend.
How many times have we heard stories of young children – 3 and 4 years old – saying to their parents on the way back from the altar rail:
“Boy, I really needed the bread of Jesus today.”
__________________________________
Tonight we gather together on the most Holy of Holy nights –
to hear the story of salvation history:
to hear the story of creation,
of rebellion,
of redemption.
We gather here tonight to celebrate that God became human,
walked among us,
suffered as we suffer,
died
and then rose from the grave.
And here is the key (in the words of Paul):
“Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his,
we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
We have been buried with Christ so that we, too, might walk in newness of life.
Clarence Jordan, founder of the Koinonia Community in Americus, GA, said,
“The crowning evidence that Jesus was alive was not a vacant grave,
but a spirit-filled fellowship.
Not a rolled-away stone,
but a carried-away church.”
In reflecting on this statement, Lutheran theologian Christoph Blumhardt comments:
“It is not enough to celebrate Easter and say ‘Christ is risen.’ It is useless to proclaim this unless at the same time we can say that we have also risen, that we have received something from heaven.
“We must feel appalled when the tremendous events that took place, the death and resurrection of Jesus, are proclaimed again and again and yet actually nothing happens with us. It has no effect.” (from “Christ Rising” in Bread and Wine, Orbis Books, 2003, p. 350).
As Paul says, “if we have been united with him in a death like his,
we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
However frightening that plunge into Christ’s death may be:
whether a literal immersion under the waters of baptism
or a turning from the ways of sin and death we encounter daily,
we celebrate with Christ the newness of life that awaits.
As the new fire, the new light, emerges in the darkness,
we remember that the darkness never overcomes the light.
May the fires of God’s love and grace burn within us
so that our lives may be a witness to resurrection life –
casting aside all fear.
God is doing a new thing in us –
birthing God’s kingdom through us
right here and right now.
So, this day and every day let us shout
“Christ is risen”
not only with our lips
but through our very lives.
Amen.
