Day Time Forever: The Meaning of Holy Saturday!
Human history has experienced moments of darkness, too long to enumerate. In recent years, all sorts of genocides, ethnic cleansing, wars, slaveries and exploitations continue to cast darkness upon the earth. The darkness of evil and sin is simply ubiquitous. There are serious doubts, in all quarters, whether it will ever be day time, day time forever more! Two areas of doubt are the possibility of nuclear extermination of the earth and its inhabitants; the other doubt is whether the human person can be any good besides the evil and sin that inhabits him and her. Tonight, Holy Saturday Night, we celebrate the beginnings of “Day Time, Day Time Forever More”.
Our first reading makes bold to say that God is Light, because with him is the origin and source of light—“Let there be light, and there was light . . . The first day”. If the human memory suffers from amnesia because of scientific doubts as to the past origin of light, this night dispels that doubt with the light of Christ, a historically verifiable Light that transforms human darkness and makes possible a life of virtue and righteousness. In fact, our proclamation “Lumen Christi — Light of Christ”, followed by our chant of exaltation (Exultet), merges two narratives: the God who said “let there be light” is the same as the resurrected Christ who is our light. God did not disappear from his creation, after the original creation of light; God dwells among his creation as the “light of the world”! The God of creation is the God of redemption, through his Son, Jesus Christ. Original light continues as light forever more!
Our liturgical celebration starts in the dark—no artificial lights—to take us back to God, the originator of and original light! We step outside human artifice, in order to reconfirm God as the source of and the only light worth that name—light! The celebration around the fire begins a recreation of primal light that humanity has abused and desecrated by sin and the darkness of infidelity. We proclaim Christ as “Light” to perpetuate the presence of Light in the world, despite human sins and wrong doings. The light of Christ, symbolized by the Paschal Candle, makes the resurrection of Christ the definitive overthrow of darkness! If sin and death seemingly make darkness powerful and ubiquitous, the resurrection of Jesus Christ conquers sin and death forever more. Yes, “let there be light”, and there appears Jesus Christ from the tomb as the light of the world; “let there be light” and Jesus emerges from the tomb, while it is still dark, as light in the darkness; “let there be light” and there appears Mary Magdalene, whom the world considered a prostitute and possessed, but she appears transformed from sin and becomes an apostle to the apostles (apostola apostolorum) announcing the resurrection. Wherever there is light, there is transformation, even from the death of sin and physical death to the glory of the resurrection.
Our second reading speaks of resilience, in the face of the impossible (Genesis 22)! Once before, humanity experienced the threat of global extermination in the deluge of Genesis 6-10, with Noah, the Ark and the rainbow as signs that only God decides when the world will come to an end. From one family stalk, humanity continues in being, just like Adam and Eve, one original human family. The experience of covenants reminds humanity of the resilient light of God. From a man, Abraham, as good as dead, scientifically speaking, his barrenness turns into multiple descendants in a night of covenant, where only distant starry skies testify to an abundance of children, a new demographics that beat the imagination hollow! Celestial lights, beyond the reach of human beings, puts up God’s light as a paragon of his presence!
If our first reading, Creation Account, from Genesis, is followed by the reading from Exodus on the liberation of the children of God from slavery, it simply reminds us that wherever the light of God is found, every form of slavery is outlawed! The light of God is a virtuous light, besides the visible light that helps us to see where to place our steps not to stumble, to have photosynthesis for our food and solar energy to power our gadgets; it is a moral light that must guide our behavior. If a pillar of fire is the presence of God among his pilgrim children on their way to the Promised Land, the light of God remains the only credible light that must enlighten human social actions and God must remain the reference point for human agencies of fight against evil and sin in every generation, including ours!
The light of Creation (Genesis) and the light of Redemption (Exodus) from slavery in Egypt combine to tell us that God’s light never comes to an end, it remains the light that guides humanity and every soul from earthly life to the life of heaven or beatific light. God’s light is a pilgrim light that travels with every generation of human beings and makes God’s light inextinguishable. It is to confirm the eternity of God’s light that Jesus rose from the dead on “the first day of the week”. If God’s light came into existence on the first day of creation, the eternity of God’s light appears on the “first day of the week”: first day of creation continues into the first day of the week; the last day of creation is when we all repose in the peace of God!
God did not leave out the physically blind, from beholding the beauty of his light! Our last, Old Testament, reading from the prophecy of Ezekiel (36) and our first reading from the New Testament (Romans 6) attach every human being directly to God, in order to enjoy the light of God—the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God that was hovering over the formless void to be shaped into creation, now lives in every human heart, readily available to recreate it in the image of God and the Temple of God. The water and Spirit at creation become the water of Baptism and the Spirit of Confirmation: two inseparable sacraments of initiation. Water washes away human iniquity and God’s Holy Spirit regenerates the human person. Here is how Ezekiel puts it: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules”.
The light of a Christian is the Holy Spirit that dwells in every heart. Through the Holy Spirit, we are all children of God by adoption (Galatians 4:4-7). Baptism (Romans 6) transforms us from our indebtedness to sin, grafts us onto Christ (Galatians 3:26–29) and Confirmation gives us the Holy Spirit to live righteous lives: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh . . . the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, 22-25).
“He is risen, he is not here”, from our gospel, is the message of immortality and everlasting light. This light of God, Holy Spirit, makes every confession “Jesus is Lord” (1 Corinthians 12:3) the work of the Holy Spirit; every good prayer is the presence of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26); human unity/communion is the sign of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12); and, every good action is the evidence of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26). This Easter Night, only those who can claim walking by the Holy Spirit and letting their past be bygone (like Mary Magdalene), have risen with Christ and now bask in the inextinguishable light of God. For Christ and Christians, a new day has done, and with it, an inextinguishable light, the light of the resurrected Christ. In the very darkness of sin, God’s Holy Spirit is alive. Indeed, from this night, we begin “day time, day time forever more”, because there will always be men and women of every age possessing the Holy Spirit and God will continue to work alongside his creatures to tackle darkness!
Happy Easter!