The Great Vigil of Easter

The Great Vigil of Easter—2017 I have been haunted this week by a scene from the movie O, Brother Where art thou. If you’ve seen the movie, I feel certain you remember it. Delmer, Everett and Pete are all standing around in the woods trying to figure out their next move, and an unearthly singing breaks out in the woods around them. As they stop talking to notice, they see a multitude of people, robed in white, streaming past them, singing and heading to a muddy looking river. As I went down in the river to pray Studying about that good old way And who shall wear the starry crown Good Lord, show me the way! O sisters, let's go down, Let's go down, come on down O sisters, let's go down Down in the river to pray The other two characters seem curious, but Delmer is enthralled, and all of a sudden, he takes off running into the water to the front of the line where, after a sharing a couple of words with the preacher, he is immediately baptized. When he comes up out of the water, he says to his friends, “Well, that’s it boys! I’ve been redeemed! The preacher done washed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out and heaven everlasting is my reward!” Then Everett says, “Delbert, what are you talking about? We got bigger fish to fry.” And Delbert replies, “The preacher said all my sins is washed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.” Everett responds, “I though you said you was innocent of those charges.” And Delbert continues without missing a beat: “Well, I was lying, and the preacher said that sin’s been washed away too. Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. Come on in, boys, the water is fine!” Water permeates our readings for tonight and our liturgy for this triduum—these three holy days. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” The Spirit of God has always moved in and on and through water. In the reading about the Flood, God cleanses the earth of corruption through the waters of the flood while preserving creation in the ark with Noah and his family and all the animals. In the reading from Exodus, God recreates his people Israel in the parting of the waters of the Red Sea. As they pass between the two walls of water unharmed, God strips them of their identity as slaves and renews them as God’s beloved and chosen people who God is willing to fight for and care for and lead home to their promised land. And in the reading from Ezekiel, God tells God’s people, who are once again enslaved and exiled, that God will “sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” And they will once again be claimed as God’s people, marked as God’s beloved, restored in God’s heart and in their homeland. I was speaking with someone yesterday (on Good Friday) about the services so far, and she said that she had always appreciated the Triduum services, but this year, they had taken on a new significance for her. This year, she felt as if she was being washed clean. I was stunned in that moment in that seemingly casual conversation, to hear her give name to the stirrings of my own soul these last few days: the sense that we as individuals and we as a whole community are being washed clean by God’s spirit in our walking together and in our holy remembering. God’s cleansing work is about to be finished in us (at least for the time being) as we stand in a couple of moments and reaffirm our baptismal vows. In those moments I invite you to offer to God your heart of stone, so that God may sprinkle it clean and replace it with a heart of flesh that is re-energized by God’s spirit, and reconfirmed as God’s beloved, with whom God is well pleased. As I went down in the river to pray Studying about that good old way And who shall wear the starry crown Good Lord, show me the way! O sinners, let's go down Let's go down, come on down O sinners, let's go down Down in the river to pray