April 3, 2010

The Rev. Rob Fisher

St. Dunstan’s, Carmel Valley

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is about the year 230 A.D., in a town on the edge of the Roman Empire called Dura Europos, a fortified garrison town susceptible to attacks.  It is a gated city on a trade route, a “Wild-West” of its day.

Inside the town is a home that has been refashioned to be a church.  It has multiple rooms around a courtyard.

We know about this home church—one of the oldest intact Christian buildings that survives today—because it was preserved under the ground when the Persians invaded the city.  Amazingly, it was saved only because it was built against the fortified wall of the city, and it was filled with dirt in a vain effort to strengthen the wall and protect the town from the invaders.  After the invasion, the town was left in ruins, untouched, until it was discovered by archeologists around the time of the first World War.

When the archeologists unearthed these rooms, they found walls covered in paintings.  These paintings tell the story of God’s saving deeds in history.  They also include the earliest known paintings of Jesus.

We get a snapshot of a worshiping community in the third century.

Remember, this is before Constantine, when the early church was tolerated by the state, but suffered waves of persecution.

The community had to protect itself.  People claiming to be new members could have been spies.  So it was common for these churches to require a long period of education for new converts.  It may have been a full year of catechism before a new member was allowed to join the community—perhaps even up to three years.

On the night when the new members were baptized and brought into the fold of the Christian community, it was a great culmination of a long period of anticipation.  It also marked a great trusting of their safety to one another, as the new members officially became part of the family of the church.

These baptisms always took place on the night of the Easter Vigil.

The room used as a baptistery in Dura Europos has been unearthed and reconstructed by archeologists, and we can see where this all took place.

The walls are covered in images, used for teaching.

There is a tub, about the size of a bathtub.  Above it is a figure of a man carrying a sheep.  It is Jesus, the good shepherd, lovingly carrying the lost sheep which has been found.

Amazingly, the water stains can still be seen inside the tub today.There are stars painted on the ceiling, and a blue night sky.  The congregants would have looked up and seen stars, just as Along the wall is a painting of three women walking to the empty tomb, where two angels sit perched.

It is an interesting insight theologically!  The tomb painted on the wall is right next to the tank for baptism, and they intentionally resemble each other.

To be baptized is to die and be reborn with Christ, to travel through the tomb, which becomes the womb of our new spiritual life.

The community gathered on this night, battling the forces of evil and darkness, to come out into the light and promise of sunrise Easter morning when the service concluded.

They would leaving the darkness and enter into a fresh day, when all shadows are dispelled.

The newly baptized emerged on this first morning of their new spiritual life as a Christian, and the bishop would feed them like an infant, with milk and honey on a spoon—the food of babies, and also the food of the promised land.

***

Like the early Christians, tonight we live out our faith in an intimate ceremony where darkness gives way to light, a service marked by love and hope.

Our world is dark, but perhaps it is no darker today than it was in the third century. And the light that we celebrate is an eternal light.  Christ does not exist only in the past, nor does he exist only in the future.  Christ is here with us today.  Christ is resurrected and free, and so is present in the light we carry, in the Eucharist that nourishes us, and in the love we share with one another in this holy place, the meeting place of our Christian family.

Christ is alive, trampling down the darkness of the nighttime of our souls and leading us into everlasting light and peace.

—Amen.