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Holy Saturday
O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of thy dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Holy Saturday
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A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
✛
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
I wonder how many of you are afraid of the dark. There is something about being awake in the night and not being able to sleep; somehow worries and concerns become amplified in the middle of the night. When I was younger, I would listen intently to the noises of the night and sometimes they would frighten me.
Vigils take place when it is dark. This Easter Vigil is no exception and most deliberately so because the Gospels tell us that the Resurrection happened during the night; Matthew tells us that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb as it began to dawn and the tomb was empty. Throughout the liturgy we have heard how God’s power can transform the darkness and make it as bright as the day.
“On this most holy night”; we heard this at the very beginning of the Vigil as the new fire was kindled and the darkness began to recede; “On this most holy night.” And as we processed into the darkened Church, led by the Paschal Candle, our tiny flames drove back the darkness and filled the church with light. The Exultet took up the theme “This is the night!” “How holy is this night!” “How blessed is this night!”
The light and the darkness seemed to have become one and, so, unafraid, we extinguished our individual lights for a while as we listened to God’s saving history, illuminated by the candle that represents the light of Christ.
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth…and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
God moved over the waters in the darkness.
At the very beginning of time, what is described as darkness to us becomes light for God – creative light that scatters the darkness.
“And God said, Let there be light.”
Adam and Eve hid themselves from the Lord because they were afraid of God. They hid in the shadows and from the beginning of the fall, darkness became associated with fear. They could not comprehend that God was as much in the darkness as in the daylight. We associate darkness with fear and evil but God can reveal himself as much in the darkness as in the light. As the psalmist says, “The darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as the day: the darkness and the light to thee are both alike.” (Ps. 139:11)
And the Lord chooses the night in which to reveal himself most powerfully.
The Exodus – that great story of salvation history for God’s chosen people happens at night and God leads his people through the red sea by the pillar of fire. This pre-figures what we have done tonight and why, on this most holy night, we celebrate the sacrament of baptism – God leads his people through the dark water of death into new life in Christ. It is why we renew our baptismal covenant and why the priest sprinkles the people with water from the font.
In the Gospels, night is also significant:
· In the night, Jesus came to the disciples on the stormy sea, walking on the water.
· Nicodemus came to Jesus at night and found himself with the one who is the truth and the light.
· Judas went to betray Jesus at night and Jesus chose the night to pray for his disciples that they might all be one.
· Even during the day, when Jesus is dying on the cross, it became night: “from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.” (Matt 27:45)
Finally, Jesus was placed in the dark tomb, under the shadow of darkness, and we believe that he went to the place of the dead – a place described as a place of shadows. But, the psalmist again reminds us: “If I climb up to heaven, thou art there: If I go down to hell, thou art there also.”
In John’s Gospel we read that “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.” (John 20:1a) – While it was still dark! What better time for destroying death than in the night: “This is the night when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.”
This is the night!
The first Adam chose darkness in which to hide, eventually returning to the darkness of the dust from which he was made. The second Adam chose the darkness of the grave to conquer death and sin and returned to the Father’s side to plead for ever our cause.
This is the night, my friends, and we need never be afraid of the dark again. As Henry Vaughan says in the last verse of his poem “The Night’:
There is in God, some say,
A deep but dazzling darkness, as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that night! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim!
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
