Church of the Good Shepherd
3700 Rutherford Street
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17111-1997
The Reverend Kester T. Sobers, III, Pastor
Easter Eve
2001
2001
It is night, but it is not dark. The light of the Risen Christ has pervaded the darkness. A darkness having nothing to do with dimness, but the very darkness of evil. Sometimes we fear evil like we fear a bully in the school yard. Perhaps we should not confront it or challenge it, lest we make it angry and we suffer all the more. But this night we name evil for the false god that it is, the true God takes his revenge, and the light of Christ manifest in his rising vanquishes the darkness. The unreasonable, outrageous, incredible promises of Christ are this very night kept by the power of God's uncompromisiong grace, and they tumble down around us through Word & Sacrament like a veritable shower of blessings. Our stories tonight are told not in the past but in the present.
This is the night when our Lord Jesus Christ passes from death to life. This is the night when the power of Christ that first burst from the tomb is present in our lives. This is the night when Christ reconciles the world to God and makes all things new. God is not locked up in the grave and neither is God locked up in some other place and time. Our lives are the place of his presence, and this is the night. And it is not dark.
This is the faith into which we invite those who would be baptized and those who would affirm and complete their own baptism. Our baptismal commitment is to proclaim that we have indeed had some reason to believe that we have seen the Lord. The blind see, the lame walk and the poor have the good news preached to them. We have seen it with our own eyes and we are willing to be submerged with this new witness and again and again to prove it. This is the night. And it is not dark. Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed!
--K.T.S
April 14, 2001
April 14, 2001
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