Sing the Rage

Propers: The Great Vigil of Easter, A.D. 2018 B

Homily:

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Rage!—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,

murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,

hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls.

So begins Homer’s Iliad, one of the most human books ever written, and the closest the ancient world had to sacred scripture before the codification of the Bible. Human life is full of rage, and pain, and disappointment. Every day is a struggle, year upon year, decade upon decade. Nothing ever satisfies. Nothing ever sates.

We are all born with a hole in our heart that we are desperate to fill. And we are told, over and over again, that if we but strive a little farther, work a little harder, pass one more little test, then happiness and contentment are just around the corner. Get good grades to get a good job and you’ll be happy. Marry the right girl, raise the right kids, and you’ll be happy. Buy the right house, wear the right clothes, eat the right food, make the right choices—and you’ll be satisfied. You’ll be happy. You’ll be fulfilled!

But it never works. No matter how much we earn or what career we choose; no matter what all we manage to buy or to seduce or to consume; sooner or later it all turns to ash in the mouth. The things we think will make us happy don’t last.

And so we keep on trying something, anything, else: midlife crises, chemical addictions, credit card debt, torrid affairs. Pick your poison! But it’s not enough. It’s never enough. And so we fall into cycles of anxiety or depression or rage. We lash out at family members or neighbors or poor hapless strangers. High school shootings, mail bombings, political mob violence: all of it stems from our nihilistic rage. We are all of us starving amidst our mountains of junk.

We need a reason to live that goes beyond our politics, preferences, and purchases, beyond this artificial drive to consume without end. We need something greater than the world, because everything in this world disappoints. Everything in this world is broken. It all falls at the last into ashes and dust, our spleens vented, our wallets empty, and all our impotent rage undone.

Murderous. Doomed. Hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls.

Which is why this night is so important. This night changes everything.

He came to earth as one of us, the Maker of us all. He came to forgive us our sins and heal our wounds and lead us back to home in Him. And He spoke to us in a Voice we all knew from before the beginning of time. And He told us truths about our God and ourselves and our world that we could in no way bear to tell ourselves.

And always His relentless promise: that in Him we would find relief, Life and Light and Truth, fulfilment of our aching need and release at last from the crushing weight that has enslaved us since the breaking of the world. And He told us we were kings and sons and wayward heirs of God, that all could be forgiven, all mended, all healed. Creation itself would be set right in Him. And all He asked in return is that we allow the love He poured forth into us to overflow into all the world around us, as it was in the beginning and will be forever, amen.

And we responded to all this, in the only way we knew. We poured out all our fear, our all despair, all our rage into Him. We lashed Him and we beat Him and we tied His skull with loops of thorns. We tore the flesh from His back and drove iron spines through His ankles and His wrists with a hammer. And then we hauled Him up for all the world to see, blood-red and naked, aloft and alone, and we cast Him down as hard as we could, down to the earth, down to the grave, down to the deepest and the blackest pits of hell.

And we sealed tight His tomb, and said so much for that! So much for the Messiah. So much for the Son of God.

Because that’s who we are, and that’s what we do. We do it to ourselves. We do it our world. And we do it to our God.

But then the damnedest thing happened. He got up.

We poured out everything we had into Him, all our hatred, all our brokenness, all our pain, and He just took it. He took it all upon Himself, into Himself. And He nailed it all in Him to that Cross and He sealed it all with Him in that Tomb. And then He opened up His wounded side and poured Himself out for the world. Poured out the Life and Breath and Blood of God into the world, into the grave, drowning death, harrowing hell, filling up that bottomless chasm with the infinite self-giving Love of God—the Love of which all other loves are but a pale imitation.

We ran His heart through with a spear, but His heart was greater than the spear. He was Himself more than death, more than hell, more than this or any other world! And He came back, not to punish, not for vengeance, not even for justice. But He came back to forgive us, to resurrect us, and to make us all as one in Him. Our hands still bloodied from the deed, our heads still bowed by our betrayal, yet still He comes back, to show us and all the world what it is a Man looks like when He has been made truly and fully alive. The first true Man since Adam!

What is our rage compared to a Love like that? What is despair against a Life that cannot die? We are utterly powerless to resist the mercies of the Resurrection. We cannot stop Him from Rising; God knows how hard we’ve tried. He has seen the worst of us, the darkest sins we keep locked away in the inner chambers of our broken hearts. He has seen our cruelty, our desperation, our all-consuming pride, and He has known in His own flesh how all of humanity is utterly, stark raving mad.

Yet still He comes back for us. Still He loves us. Still He reaches out His wounded hands to bring His sisters and His brothers home. There is nothing more we can inflict upon Him. There is only the sweet sublimity of surrender to a Love as inexorable and all-conquering as the tide.

Christ has conquered death this night and harrowed open hell. But more miraculous than this, He has taken upon Himself the very worst of human nature, and by it conquered us as well.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.