Easter is for Everyone

I don't title my sermons. I'm not sure why. Its not that I'm opposed to titling sermons, I just don't do it with mine. I am, however, playing with the idea of titling my Easter Vigil sermon, "Easter is for Everyone." What'da think? My reason for this is that prayer I got so jazzed about a few months ago; the one that ends the readings of the Vigil service.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look
favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred
mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry
out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world
see and know that things which were cast down are being
raised up, and things which had grown old are being made
new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer, with its focus on the whole Church, seems apt to me for Easter morning, as the battered and broken body of Christ is resurrected, holes and all, for the sake of all humanity. But my Easter Vigil sermon has nothing to do with the readings for the primary services on Easter Day. Still, the sermon title holds, "Then Peter began to speak to them: 'I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.'"

Peter's realization that God is doing a new thing outside of the bonds of Peter's original understanding is essentially an realization that Easter is for Everyone. The work done on the cross, in the tomb, and ultimately in the resurrection is a work done so that "all might come within the reach of God's saving embrace."

Easter is for everyone, yet so many don't know that Easter is for them. That is why I want to title my sermon this one time. I want it to say in big letters somewhere (oh how I wish we had a marquee this one time) that Easter is for Everyone.