Story Telling the Faith – Easter Vigil

Story-Telling the Faith

Easter Vigil

INI

The one true faith is passed on through storytelling. At the center of the Passover meal, which Jesus celebrated with His disciples on Maundy Thursday, was storytelling. They would eat specific things to remember specific things about their story, as God’s people. They would eat bitter herbs to remember the bitter suffering in Egypt. They had the lamb shank bone to remember the Passover lamb they ate that night. They had the unleavened bread to remember the quickness with which the Lord delivered them that night. They told these stories that it may be passed on to their children. Because the faith is propagated by proclamation and storytelling. And not just storytelling but orienting your life around this story.

Now, when I say storytelling, I don’t mean fictional stories that have no basis in history, like Harry Potter or Marvel Superheroes. I mean stories that have real, authentic meaning, identity, and security. I mean a real story that’s passed down and lived out from generation to generation. It’s the type of story where we don’t just sit down here to listen to a sermon now, to then go home unaffected for a lifetime. No, this story is truly lifesaving, and life changing. And this story is ours.

So, we do as our fathers have done for us, and their fathers have done for them. We story-tell. Specifically, we tell the story that God has written for His people – the story of salvation into which He incorporates us. The story of Scripture has many different parts. It has many ways of telling the one story. The one story is this: death, and resurrection. That’s really the only story that the Scriptures tell.

In the flood account that was read, there is death to sinners and life to God’s faithful. In the crossing of the Red Sea, there is death to the Egyptians who enslaved God’s people, and there is freedom from slavery for God’s people. In the valley of dry bones, where there was once death to God’s people due to their rebellion against God, God will unite them bone to bone and put flesh on them again. In the fiery furnace, Daniel was preserved through the threat of death and was given life because of God’s care for him. Now on this most holy night, we remember that as God has brought the saints of old from death to life, so has God brought us from death to life. For we remember our baptisms, where God has placed His name on us, where He has washed us clean of sin and given forgiveness, life, and salvation. We have new catechumens, who’ve sworn themselves to the life of God’s holy church, that they may be blessed by God in this place. And all these stories reach their climax tonight from the Gospel of Matthew: though Christ died on the cross, He has risen from the tomb! He is not there! He is a living God with power over death, and He distributes that power now to you! The culmination of this fruit, of this story, is now received in the Lord’s Supper, through bread and wine as we recount the victory of the Lamb!

We observed this shift in the story tonight. Did you notice the shift in the liturgy tonight? What part of the service was about death? What part of the service was about life? The story of humanity shifts from hopelessness to joy. From despair to vitality. From slavery to freedom. From sin to forgiveness. From death to life. All because of the one who stands in the place of all humanity, Jesus Christ, has shifted the narrative. Our Savior descended into hell on this night, as we observed by entering a darkened Sanctuary, with the light of Christ in the midst of darkness as we processed in. We proclaimed the saving story of God, just as Jesus did to the prisoners on that faithful night in the depths of hell, as 1 Peter 3:19 declares. After our prayers, the sanctuary shifted from lifelessness to vitality, from death to life as we celebrate and are filled with joy by the victory of Christ our King.

That’s the story. It’s your story. For God seeks to rescue His bride, the church. You’ve heard the story tonight from the grand architect Himself, who inspired generations of men to write the Holy Scriptures, lest we forget God’s work. God, in His mercy, has delivered His people. He has saved them from the bitterness of sin – the death due to sin. So let us now continue on the victory Christ has won for us tonight and proclaim the victories of the risen Christ to all the world. Let’s tell it to our children, and our children’s children. Let’s tell it to our estranged cousins, and their friends. So that the one true faith may be passed down to all generations.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston