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| The nave of St Olave Hart Street following bomb damage c1941 |
A sermon given during the Easter Vigil at St Olave Hart Street on Saturday 4th April 2026 based on the Vigil Texts of Genesis 1.1 – 2.4a, Exodus 14.10-end; 15.1a, Jeremiah 31.31-34 and the texts at Holy Communion Romans 6.3-11 and Matthew 28.1-10 and the astounding history of this church.
Tonight the liturgy of the Vigil and the first Communion of Easter – offered here for the first time in many years - provides a feast for souls and bodies on a life-long pilgrimage of faith seeking understanding. Learning who we are, who Jesus is and what it means to believe in him.
Stories we have heard before - and forgotten.
Promises we have made - and broken.
We gather here again and again because our very being is rooted in the
beautiful rhythms of creation and redemption. Because that’s how what is
unclear slowly becomes clear. How we learn. How we grow. How life is renewed.
This night
is not like other nights.
Because
this is the night when death is undone.
Through the
resurrection of Christ all is made alive - made whole - in him. Brought back
together. Re-membered.
This place
embodies the living hope of the resurrection that the scriptures call us to
proclaim - to be ready, always, to give an account of. To make a testament of
in and through our lives.
A pile of
rubble seventy-five years ago, until the first restoration stone was laid by
the King of a foreign land and this temple rose again. Through the grave and
gate of death the green blade riseth.
While our
forebears worshipped, faithfully in exile. In a tin tabernacle attached to an
ancient tower nearby. In fear and joy.
Holding
together polar opposites like those is what this place does.
And it is who we are.
A people
who have been redeemed. Who have been to the edge of destruction – and been
drawn back. Not because we deserved it but by a grace which passes understanding.
By love that will not let us go. We have been given new life where there was
none. Through the death and resurrection of the Son of God. Our saviour, Jesus
Christ.
The most
important moment in the history of the world.
On which
the threads of all our lives are held - in holy tension.
A tension
which has become a blessing. Because no matter how tangled the threads become along
the way, we know where they lead. To the source of that love. The one who has
written on our hearts that we are His people.
So many
lives are woven together here. We joke that the whole world has passed through
this tiny parish. And it has. A place where people meet and meaning quietly
emerges.
Many have
called this their “own church”, each encounter an enrichment - a deepening of
existence - an occasion for joy.
Here in the
home of The Clothworkers’ Company we come to be reclothed in Christ.
Here in the
home of the Corporation of Trinity House we seek Christ’s saving light in the
storms of darkness.
Here in the
home of the Samuel Pepys’ Club we come to lay before Christ our redeemer the
account of our own lives. In all their fullness.
Here in the
home of the Company of Environmental Cleaners we come to be cleansed through
Christ’s saving blood.
Here, this
night, in scripture and song, in the movement from darkness into light, in the
sprinkling of baptismal waters and in the breaking of bread, our lives—our
souls and bodies—are being woven together with all who call, have called and
will call this place their ‘own church’, through the grace and for the glory of
God.
By the
life, death and resurrection of his Son, God has made our lives together a
temple restored. Living stones. A testament to creation and re-creation.
Deliverance and promise. Death and rebirth.
We are
being transformed. Even now.
In this place where polar opposites are held in holy tension we learn that true
freedom - the gift of becoming the person that God created us to be - comes
from giving up our lives to his service.
Called to
kindle and share the light and hope placed within us.
We are
Easter people.
We are
God’s own church.
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