In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
If you were to ask people what they most yearn for, after they go through the near-term wants and desires, most of us will eventually say “peace.” We long for peace. Scripture gives us the words of an often-used blessing that describes this longing – the peace of God which passes all understanding. One of the prayers that so many pray nightly in Evening Prayer is “Give peace in our time, O Lord.” Many just want some peace and quiet, we want peace in Palestine, Ukraine, and Sudan, we want a peaceful civil discourse. Peace is what so many want, and peace is the final emotion to consider this Holy Week. Since Palm Sunday, each sermon has focused on a different emotion as a way of entering into the drama of this week which finds its consummation in the peace of God.
Before diving into peace, we need to define what peace is. It’s not simply the cessation of hostilities – we could call that concord or harmony. Nor is peace about a lack of noise, we could call that silence or quiet. Nor is peace about things necessarily being calm – serenity or tranquility would do for that meaning. Biblical peace is something grander and wider than all of those other senses of the word. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Hebrew word for peace: shalom. Shalom encompasses ideas similar to those other definitions about friendliness and tranquility, and it also includes the idea of being safe, secure, and prosperous. But what really defines shalom is the idea of wholeness, fullness, and completeness. In other words, shalom-peace is about things being as they are intended to be, full of the goodness with which God created all things. In the Biblical mindset, peace is not the product of our negotiations or self-care practices, it is a blessing of divine grace.
The sort of peace that we receive from God is a sense of contentment, even when things aren’t exactly how we would script them. Peace is trusting in the wellness that Dame Julian testified to when she wrote that “all manner of things shall be well.” Peace is the assurance that all is being redeemed and as we prayed on Good Friday, “that all things are being brought to their perfection in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This trajectory of peace is the story that Scripture tells. The Bible is not a collection of stories and episodes – it is one story, it is the story, of God’s peace, woven with the thread of love by our Savior who is working all things towards his infinite goodness and mercy. This is what the Easter Vigil is intended to immerse us in. As we await the moment of the Easter proclamation, the Church across the world keeps vigil and tells the story anew. Each passage shows us a different aspect of God’s peace.
The first lesson tonight was the Creation narrative. God is a creative artist, imbuing all things with goodness and opening up possibilities for flourishing. God creates by bringing order to chaos and bestowing an abundance to the world. This generative aspect of God tells us something about God’s peace, namely that no matter how formless, chaotic, and impossible the situation might be, God creates peace.
Next, we have one of the most troubling and interesting passages in all of Scripture – often called the Binding of Isaac. We could spend the rest of the night exploring this passage and we’d barely scratch the surface of it. But the aspect to lift up regarding peace is the demonstration that God provides. When a sacrifice was needed, God provided. Throughout Scripture, this is true of God whether it’s manna in the wilderness, bread for Elijah, salvation for Daniel in the lion’s den, or loaves and fish among the 5,000 – God provides. And when we need a Savior, God provides through the offering of Jesus Christ.
We then come to the central passage in the Old Testament and the Easter Vigil. The reading of the Exodus is the only passage that that Prayer Book mandates must be read at the Easter Vigil. One theologian has even made this event central to the very identity of God, saying “God is whoever raised Jesus from the grave after having first raised up Israel out of Egypt.” God brings peace because God is our Savior who makes a way out of no way and brings life to all that is dead.
We then heard three manifestations of God’s saving grace from Judith, Esther, and Daniel. Each belongs in the Vigil because they show us different angles of God’s salvation throughout history and assure us of the peace that God is bringing forth.
This could be the first time you’ve heard that passage from Judith, as it comes from the Apocryphal section of the Bible and is not included in any of our Sunday readings. It’s a great story that I’ll leave you to read through later –the section we heard is the climax. The hero and namesake of the book, Judith, has used her cunning to make her way into Holofernes’ tent – he’s the general of the invading Assyrian army. It’s a fairly gruesome story about warfare, which might seem contrary to the idea of peace. But what we see is that God subverts power and uses the weak to bring about victory and restoration. Really, all of the Vigil readings are foreshadowing the ultimate fulfillment of God’s salvation in Easter, and we see that here. God, through whatever means available, even a Cross and tomb, seeks to save us.
Then there is the story of Esther which is another great book about a female champion that isn’t read as often as it might be. When it comes to moving things towards peace, God uses us as instruments of God’s peace. St. Teresa of Ávila wrote a poem in the 1500s that says, in part, “Christ has no body but yours.” We see that a part of how God brings about peace and salvation is through people like Esther, Harriet Tubman, Maximilian Kolbe, and people like you and me. One of the interesting details of the Book of Esther is that God is never explicitly named or mentioned. Sometimes it can seem as if God is silent or absent, but the Holy Spirit is always active – stirring up courage in people like Esther and summoning them to rise for a time such as this. God is always pursuing peace, even when we are unaware.
God’s constancy with us is what brings peace and salvation to the three young men in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar. Whatever heat we are facing, whatever tight spot we are in, we are never alone. This is one of the things that makes peace possible even in the midst of turmoil and calamity – God is with us in the messes of life; our Good Shepherd is with us in the valleys of the shadow of death.
In the Vigil readings, the final text shows us God’s intention to restore all things as the dead and dry bones are brought to life by the animating Spirit of God. Again, Biblical peace is about fullness and wholeness, and God’s promised plan is to restore and redeem that is lost and all that is broken.
There are two Scripture readings yet to come, and they will give us a further taste of God’s peace. In Romans, St. Paul describes the mystery of faith: not just that Jesus does something for us, not merely that God blesses us, but that we are united to Jesus through Baptism. This is why we can be so confident that all shall be well, because the peace of Jesus is our peace. We are in Jesus and Jesus is in us. Sort of like how at a wedding we say that the two become one flesh, well, in Baptism a similar sacramental change happens – we become one in and with Jesus. The peace of Christ is alive in us.
And the culmination of this peace will be proclaimed in the Easter Gospel from Luke. The Prayer Book allows for a sermon to be preached now, or in the usual place after the Gospel is read. One of the reasons why I choose to preach the sermon here is that, if I’ve done my work as a preacher in setting the table, the Gospel will preach for itself and needs no further explanation. So, as it is proclaimed, hear it as the peace that passes all understanding intersecting with history.
Luke will proclaim the Good News that nothing, not the grave, not our sins, not our murder of God Almighty can overwhelm the self-giving love of Jesus Christ. And with this power of love, God raises the dead and this is where our ultimate peace is found – both in the promise of Resurrection for us all and in the unleashing of this love into the world.
Resurrection is not a theory, not a promise locked up in the future, not a doctrine – Resurrection is now. Resurrection is a relationship of peace with God in each and every moment; a relationship in which forgiveness, belonging, and love can be taken for granted. Resurrection is the gift of being fully alive on this side of the grave, not only the other. Resurrection allows us to be prodigal in love, lavish in generosity, profuse in gratitude, audacious in hope, bold in mission, secure in our belonging, and at peace in the all-surpassing wellness of Jesus Christ.
This is the entire trajectory and meaning of Scripture – this peace that is enabled by the love that raises the dead and forgives the guilty. As the Easter Gospel is read, notice what the angels say to the women, “Remember how he told you…” Remember what this one story is all about – it’s about the love that is making all things well and giving us the peace that the world cannot give.
An English author wrote a book over a hundred years ago with “only connect” as one of the throughlines – well, the Easter Vigil helps us to see that this is precisely what God does across space and time. Everything is connected through and by the love of God. Our faith is the unified story of how God is working to take all the chaos, brokenness, and discord of the world and resolve it in the harmonious peace of Jesus Christ. At Easter, God’s ultimate purpose is revealed as connecting our deaths to his eternal life, connecting light into the darkness of the world just as these candles bring light into this space, and connecting us to the peace that is making all things well.
