Our Exodus: Freedom from Slavery to Sin and Fear

 

We’ve all seen romantic comedies—or even romantic tragedies—where a poor bride is left at the altar, standing in the middle of a beautifully decorated church full of people.

I was afraid that this year’s Easter Vigil would look something like that. We had no one to baptize, and although the Vigil has many other wonderful aspects, baptism is an important one.

But I saw one rom-com where there was a man ready to step into the groom’s shoes and marry the bride, whom he’d loved all along.

Tonight, Joseph Newfield is playing that role. After attending Alpha and just several weeks into our RCIA program, he asked to be baptized.

I had resigned myself to the disappointment of a Vigil without a baptism, so I didn’t get too excited until Joseph and I had a serious conversation about his faith journey and knowledge of Christ and his Church.

And then I got excited. It was clear that the Lord had been leading him well before Alpha and RCIA.

Joseph, we thank God that he has led you here. And not just because you're playing a role at our Easter Vigil! 

We also pray that God will continue to lead you in the days ahead. It has been many centuries since the Christian faith has been this difficult in what were formerly Christian societies.

Joseph, while preparing for tonight, you learned that the Easter Vigil has seven readings from the Old Testament. The Church only insists on three. But whatever a parish chooses to do, one of the seven is never omitted.

That reading is from the fourteenth chapter of Exodus, where the chosen people are led through the waters of the sea, escaping from Pharaoh and his army.

There’s a good reason why we always read this passage at the Vigil: the Israelites are saved by water, clearly prefiguring the sacrament of Baptism.

The Israelites are led through the darkness by a divine light, just as our church and our hearts were illuminated by the light of Christ as we began this liturgy tonight.

God saved his chosen people from slavery to Pharaoh by leading them to freedom.  Now Christ has saved his chosen ones from slavery to sin by leading them to freedom in baptism.

Joseph, you were in Victoria a few Sundays ago when I preached about the Jefferson Bible—the bible that President Thomas Jefferson produced by cutting out all the miracles, including the Resurrection.

Since that Sunday, I’ve come across another edited version of the scriptures called “the Slave Bible,” currently on display in Washington, D.C.

The miracles are there all right, and the Resurrection too.  What the Slave Bible omits is the story of the Passover and the Exodus that is so important tonight. As the name suggests, this was a bible produced for slaves. Its editors didn’t want slaves in the Caribbean being inspired by Moses. It didn’t want to encourage the hope for freedom from oppression.

We roll our eyes at the Jefferson Bible, and we lament the attitudes that gave rise to the Slave Bible. No one is likely to publish a bible nowadays that has no miracles or no Exodus.

But, Joseph, that doesn’t mean you won’t have to confront the errors that these books contained. The world will try very hard to convince you that the miracles of Jesus are, at best, theatre and that his Resurrection is mainly an excuse to eat too much chocolate.

Even more seriously, the world today tempts us to ignore the call to freedom that resounds in the scriptures. The world calls us daily to slavery—in small ways, by promoting selfishness and sin, and in big ways by addicting us to comfort, lust, and success.

Joseph, you will receive many blessings and graces on this night of your baptism. Among them is freedom. As St. Paul says, “you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”

Paul adds in the next chapter “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Accept with gratitude and hope the gift of freedom promised to his disciples.

Let me conclude with words of St. Peter. God has “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  

That’s as good a summary of this night as any. So now let us step into the light as we celebrate the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.