The Exultet or the Easter Song tells us that this is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave. And we his people rejoice tonight not just for the sake of Christ, but also for ourselves. Because in breaking the chains of death, Christ has broken the grip that death had on us also. Because of this night, suffering, pain, sorrow and mourning have lost their ultimate power. Christ has carried us on his back through the valley of darkness. And he stands now with us to greet the dawn.

The real miracle of easter is the manner in which the lives of the apostles had been transformed by the resurrection of the master. They had fled from Calvary a broken and dejected group of people; their hero had died. The one on whom they had pinned their hopes for years had been executed as a criminal. They fled from Calvary hill to lock themselves into the upper room at Jerusalem, believing their own lives to be in danger. Then suddenly they are transformed into eloquent preachers, brave men and women for whom death held no fear. This surely, rather than the moved stone or the missing body, is the ultimate proof of the resurrection of the master. Something happened which convinced them he was still alive again. That something we call resurrection. Their hope, so cruelly snuffed out on Calvary, is now revived and transformed into a vital driving force. They are literally new men. Yet, death as a cold fact, has not been abolished. But its power over them has been broken. And because its power has been broken, fear has been banished from their lives.

It would be inappropriate to let this easter night pass without some joyful reference to the development in our own country in recent years. The 'Good Friday Agreement' is now firmly embedded in the psyche of the nation. Despite strenuous efforts to brand it as 'The Belfast Agreement', the name never stuck or took. The Good Friday Agreement it remains. And that is indeed appropriate. Easter is all about hope and new life, about the triumph of forgiveness and compassion over bitterness and sin. What better gift could we have presented to our resurrected Lord than the miracle performed in Northern Ireland on that Good Friday. There brave men and women began to draw the veil over a most bitter period in our history. The violence cost 3,500 lives. I don't think we can ever grasp fully the horrors our compatriots have been through this last thirty years.We thank God tonight that history threw up at this fortuitous moment men and women of wisdom and vision, gifted with the patience, insight and courage to stand in the other man's shoes and to view the world through his eyes. Only in that way could healing an resurrection begin.

Many of those who lost family and friends in that sad time experienced their suffering as meaningless waste. And of course much of it was. But this is not the sum total of our experience. We also know that selfless love has suffering as a frequent companion. It seems to be the price demanded by our scheme of things. And this seems to be supremely so in the case of Jesus. His entire life, based utterly on selfless love, offers us a glimpse of the New Creation. Not even death could deter him from following the father's plan. The Father's response to this obedient self-giving was to restore him to us as Lord and Saviour. The fact of death remains. The significance of the fact has been transformed. The believer can no longer view death as a mere life-quenching inheritance, the doubtful gift of an indifferent God. Our perspective has been broadened to include God in this divine-human equation. He has absorbed suffering and death into himself. Because of Jesus our suffering and death has acquired a divine dimension. Because of his death, they will acquire a divine conclusion. The problem has not been solved. But the mystery has been deepened and enriched. This is the reality we try to absorb during this easter vigil and indeed through the entire of the Easter Season.

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