Celebrate the day of your victory

Sermon for the Vigil of Easter

Yesterday, Good Friday, was the day on which we commemorated our Lord’s victory over the sin the held us captive and over the devil who thought we were his for eternity. On this Easter Sunday Eve, it’s His victory over death that we celebrate. But more than that, it’s our victory, the Church’s victory, that we celebrate this evening. Because, in His Mercy, God has brought us to Holy Baptism, where He took us and united us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. The day of your Baptism was the day of your victory over sin, death, and the devil.

Oh, not your final victory. Not yet. The Church on earth is still “Militant.” We’re still fighting, still vulnerable, still able to be led into temptation and away from the faith into which we were baptized. And so we watch and pray. We keep vigil, as we are doing tonight. We stay vigilant, as our Lord told us to do. We trust in His power and protection, and we use the Means of Grace that He has appointed to keep us in the faith until the final victory, when we are taken out of this life, one way or another, to be with the risen Lord forever, to live under Him in His heavenly kingdom, even as we now live under Him in His kingdom on earth.

And that itself is a monumental victory. We were trapped in the devil’s kingdom. But our Father in heaven has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. We have that redemption in Christ, through Baptism, through faith, through the blood of Christ, shed on the cross. And now Christ lives to preserve us in the faith and to rule over all things so that we reach our final victory.

Until then, watch and pray. Keep vigil. And seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. A blessed Easter to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ! Amen.