Easter Vigil 2013 (The Rev'd Dr. John H. Eastwood)

We come together tonight to hear the Church’s most important story in this greatest act of worship of the Christian Year. We come to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ from the dead and to share in his presence with us through the holy food of bread and wine.  With the new fire of Easter, blessed and burning, bright atop the paschal candle, we have the light that illumines all darkness of our hearts and minds.  Tonight we join our stories to that story of new life.
As we listened to the prophets, we heard how God’s people have endured through hardship, abandonment, and loss. As we imagine the experience of Jesus’ disciples, we hear that same experience echoing in their story. When we think about our own lives, we may be able to identify those hard times when we felt lost and abandoned, and found ourselves searching for something solid to hold onto, hoping that the hand of God would reach out to us, and to know ourselves coming home to God.  We can see how the story of long ago, the people of the prophets, the people of Jesus, how their story reverberates within us, and our stories can become joined together. 
And tonight there is a new story that begins to unfold, as a child, surrounded by a family’s love, is washed by the waters of baptism, through the dying and rising of Christ, and made a child of God, and has a new spiritual home in the family of Christ.  What began long ago, the story of dying and rising to new life, continues this into this very night.
I am use the word “story” a lot this here because it has great power within it. Stories lead us to new discoveries, important learnings, and spiritual renewal. 
Sharing spiritual autobiographies is a way of witnessing about God in our lives.  It is about telling what has happened to us, and letting the events speak for themselves.  That is what we will be doing as a congregation this Easter season as we gather into small groups in the coming weeks to share our stories with one another. It is a time of discovery and experiencing the strength of renewal.
Keith Miller, a popular Christian writer tells a story about a woman named “Alice” in his book Habitation of Dragons.  They were members of a support group who were committed to one another in order to help deepen their spiritual lives.  As a part of their common bond, the group shared their spiritual autobiographies.  One night Alice told her story - one that Miller says he could never forget.  It went like this:
When I was a tiny little girl, I was put in an orphanage.  I wasn’t very pretty, and no one wanted me.  Still I wanted to be adopted and loved by a family more than anything else.  I thought about it day and night.  But everything I did seemed to go wrong.  I tried too hard to please everybody who came to look at me, and all I did was drive them away.
Then one day the head of the orphanage told me that a family was going to come and take me home with them.  I was so excited I jumped up and down and cried.  The matron reminded me that I was on trial and that it might not be permanent.  But I just knew it would be.  So I went with this family and started school in their town - a very happy little girl.
But one day, a few months later, I skipped home from school and ran in the front door of the big old house we lived in.  No one was home but there was my old battered suitcase with my coat thrown over it.  As I stood there and looked at the suitcase, it slowly dawned on me what it meant ... they didn’t want me, and I hadn’t even suspected.”
At this point Alice paused.  But the group didn’t notice.  They were waiting for her to continue as they imagined her standing in the hallway with the suitcase, and trying not to cry.
Alice cleared her throat, and then said, almost matter-of-factly, 
That happened to me seven times before I was thirteen years old.
Miller and the group, looking at this tall 40 year old woman sitting next to them, silently wept, and one member stood to give her a hug.  But Alice startled them by saying, Don’t be sad for me.  I needed my past.  You see, it brought me to God.
Our past is our story and as we let it unfold with each other we are helped to discover the presence of God in our lives, the presence of the One who is God of the refugee, the God of unfolding grace. 
Easter is about what it means to live in the Spirit.  Easter means that we are neither lost nor abandoned, but loved by God, and have our home in God.  At Easter, we come home to God.  He is our joy, peace, mercy and grace. Please join me in response, proclaiming once again, “Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!”  Let us stand!

May the peace of the Lord be always with you!