Vigil of Pentecost

At Pentecost we note the beginnings of a great reversal, a correction, a recapitulation, a renewal of the heavens and the earth. For Pentecost marks the beginnings of tongues again being understood by all, a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel, when God confused their languages and scattered  them across the face of the earth. Now all begin to hear and understand, on Pentecost, what will in the end be a united people of God, all speaking and understanding the same words, the fulfillment of reuniting of all men, at the Last Day. And so too, as death and horrors once entered the world, and men's blood was shed, and they died, and were buried and became dry bones in the graves, now at the spreading of Easter's resurrection joys to all men, the vision of Ezekiel begins to be fulfilled, and bone hinges back to bone, and sinews are formed, and flesh, and the breath of God is breathed on them, and this mortal begins to put on immortality; Christ rises from the grave, and at the end we all shall rise from the grave, and life shall forever overshadow death and be death's destruction. And as through our lives in a fallen world there are so many dark and sinful and regrettable and sorrowful and wrenching  realities we must endure, now the reversal begins, and renewal begins: the beginnings of our vindication come to pass, and in the end, he shall wipe every tear from our eyes. This reversal shall be complete, and permanent, and eternal. Let us ever sing alleluias in our hearts. Sermon for the Vigil of Pentecost.