1) In the first lection, the story of Creation, we see God manifesting to us His love for us. Our Father saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. Now comes our reaction to God's loving action. In Adam and Eve's rebellion, they effectively repudiated the Father's love. Were God solely a God of justice, He would have been right to wipe out the human race then and there. But no, He held back, He didn't go all the way. God gave mankind another chance, only barring our ancestors from Eden and subjecting them to a life of labor and death.
2) In the lection about The Flood, we are again aware that God was totally disgusted with the perversions, idolatries, fornication, and backsliding of His human creatures. Again, were He a God of strict justice, He might well have wiped out the human race and started completely afresh. No, God gave Noah and his family a chance at a new start. God's love for His human creatures prevailed; He did not go to the limit in punishing our sinfulness. He gave us another chance when he had Noah and his family build an ark and populate it with all living creatures.
3) Now, in Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, God is not punishing him for something he has done. Rather, God is putting Abraham to the test, and to what a test! Were our Father a stern God of unbending justice, He could well have made Abraham go all the way; forced Abraham to sacrifice his son. No, once again we see God holding back, providing a ram as a substitute for Isaac
4) Still another time, Israel's deliverance from the Red Sea came after the Israelites had fallen into idolatry and had slidden back from their worship of God while in the Egyptian captivity. God could well have left them to drown in the Red Sea. No, for the fourth time in our Easter Vigil lections we see that our Father's love for His human creatures has caused Him to hold back from absolute justice, to give His people Israel another chance. God rescued His chosen people from their Egyptian pursuers.
5) In the final lection, about the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel presents God as bringing dry bones back to life. Could His children not learn; could they not repent of their evil ways; could they not return to their Father? No, they continued their unrighteousness. Here again, in spite of His creatures' infidelity, God reveals His love for His children as greater than His righteous judgment.
How well do we respond to Gods holding back, to His showing us loving mercy? Now God will act; now the Father will give us our due; now the righteous judge will respond to our infidelity, to our murdering of his Son, to our crucifixion of the Prince of Peace.
Finally, God will not hold back; this time He will not show restraint; now were going to get it!
How true, beloved in Christ! The Father not only brought His son back from the Grave, not only made him victorious over death, not only crowned him as King of Creation.
He gave us miserable sinners the Son whom we sinners had crucified. Not only did the Victim return in victory to His assailants, not only did He cry out, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."
Not only that, but He tonight and for all time feeds us with the Body which we broke and with the Blood which we spilt. Talk about going over the top! In our wildest imagination we could not have thought up such an out-of-this-world reaction to our perfidy.
Now, beloved in Christ, we who hunger and thirst after righteousness are to be fed with the Body and Blood of the Lord our Righteousness. Now we come to the altar of God; now our thirst is to be slaked and our hunger dispelled. Now we, redeemed by the object of our perfidy, redeemed as the permanent effect of the Crucifixion, are to be fed with the source of our Redemption.
So, until the events which we are experiencing again tonight, it had seemed that God held back, that He informed His justice with love. Tonight, He does not hold back; He goes over the top; He gives us the Gift!
Tonight we also must not hold back; we also must go over the top; we also must soar above Calvary. Finally, we have no basis for holding back; God has gone all the way. May we tonight follow His lead.
I shall now echo the angel and make a proclamation, to which all of us who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ will respond - over the top this time: "He is not here; He is risen! Alleluia!" "The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!"
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the name of +the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
Now, that's all prelude; we now come to the big Act. God finally and conclusively acted when He gave us His only Son. God's gift of His Son was a final action to which our proper reaction would be, not only acceptance, but joyful embracing of the Holy One.
How did we do this time? How did we react to Gods giving us His Son?
We crucified Jesus!