Walking in Newness of Life

A sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter with Holy Baptism
April 4, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Genesis 1:1-2:4a [The Story of Creation]; Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13 [The Flood]; Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 [Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea]; Isaiah 55:1-11 [Salvation offered freely to all]; Ezekiel 37:1-14 [The valley of dry bones]; Zephaniah 3:14-20 [The gathering of God’s people]; Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10

Sometimes we think the dye is cast, fate is determined, there is nothing more to be done. Sometimes we think we’re done for and there’s no way out. Sometimes we think that evil and sin have won, and we are tempted to give up on the goodness and power and love and grace of God. Sometimes we think the tomb gets the last word, and we are tempted to resign ourselves to fear and despair. Sometimes we think those things. But then the grace of God descends like lightning, and the earth shakes, and those things we feared most become like dead men, and we hear the message of the angels: Do not be afraid. Then we meet Jesus on the road and we hear his promise. And like the women at the tomb, we are overcome with great joy. For although we thought there was only a dead end, God transforms our fear into a mission and sends us out as witnesses to his love and grace. Instead of walking in our funeral clothes, we find we are walking in newness of life, as children of the living God. 

These past three days I’ve been telling us about Scott Harrison, a Marine Corps veteran from the Vietnam conflict who suffered with PTSD, isolation, and alcoholism. He had given up. The only thing that saved him, that gave him mooring, was a gift from his sister: a simple music box. It transported him to a vision of a mountain meadow, a place of healing and retreat. But then the music would fade, and he would be back in the middle of his battlefield. An inescapable battlefield of despair. I am sure there were days he thought there was no way out. 

It seems he was a lot like those dry bones we heard about in Ezekiel. “Mortal, can these bones live?” God asks the prophet. “O Lord God, you know.” God commands the prophet to prophesy to the bones, and they join, and the breath of life enters them, and what was dead is alive again. God makes a way out of no way. The dead end is transformed into newness of life. The battlefield is turned to a mountain meadow. Scott was like those dry bones, trapped in despair and depression. But the Spirit of God was not finished with him. The Spirit of God is not finished with us, even when we want to give up, even when we want to throw in the towel. The breath of God comes again, and we are made new. 

What I love about Scott’s story is that the place he imagined on the battlefield is the place he ended up. The vision of that mountain meadow is where he lives now with his Carousel of Happiness, surrounded by those who love him, embraced by grace. What he once saw as a mere escape, a hopeful vision, God turned into a reality, a place of healing and wholeness. But this healing was not for him alone, but for others, too. His pain was transformed into service and love-even beauty and art-for those around him. His trauma, his suffering, his pain, his sorrow did not get the last word–they did not get the last word over him anymore than the cross got the last word over Jesus. Instead it is transformed and he is made new. God called him from his tomb and into newness of life. 

God calls us from our tombs, too. Sometimes our tombs are more comfortable. Sometimes sin and death feel inconquerable–and by our own power they are. But we have a Lord who has defeated them for us. Through his death and resurrection, he has done all that needed to be done to pull us into newness of life, both today and forever. His call to follow him is a call from the disease of despair and into the joy of new life. Like the women who meet the risen Lord, we meet Christ on the road, and he sends us out as witnesses to his love, his goodness, his grace, his life. 

Shayla and Spencer: Tonight you have been joined with Christ through the waters of baptism. This is pure grace–it’s all a gift, because God loves you. God has always loved you, and he always will. You will never be able to escape that love. There will be hard things in your life. Following Jesus does not mean that everything is easy. But difficult things do not get to say who you are. Those things do not get to defeat you. For Christ has called you his own. You are a child of God today and forever. And while the journey may be bumpy at times, you–and all of us–are called to walk in newness of life. We are called to walk in love in a world of fear. We are called to walk in hope in a world of despair. We are called to walk in faith in a world that wants to give up. We are called to walk in joy–the joy of knowing that you belong to God, today and forever. You are marked for heaven, and you are an ambassador of the kingdom of God. Live in grace, live in love, live in hope, live in joy, live in faith–do that and you will be a sign of what God is like. And we need that kind of witness today.