The Exsultet 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. The Paschal Candle symbolises this triumph. "May the morning star which never sets find this flame still burning" the Exsultet prayed. And we his people rejoice today 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. The words of Peter in our first reading today are not the words of a frightened man: "Now I and those who were with me can witness to everything he did throughout the countryside of Judea and Jerusalem itself; and also to the fact that they killed him by hanging him on a tree, yet three days afterwards God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen...." And this from the man who had, in his selfish fear, denied Jesus three times. 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.
Easter is a great celebration. The religious festival is, of course, in perfect harmony with the season, part of the 'perpetual cycle of regeneration', as the anthropologists call it. In fact the Easter Liturgy itself still carries strong vestiges of it pagan ancestry. I do not say this disparagingly. I do it to stress the all-embracing range of the Easter story. He died and rose in bodily form, not just to save the human race, but to save the world, which includes the relatively insignificant spot of dust called the earth, this earth which is coming alive again after the dead of winter. Spring is in the air. The sap is rising in the trees and plants; the flowers are emerging anew in all their beauty. Spring is a season of great hope, if not optimism. The dead wood is raked away, exposing the young shoots and seeds to the life-giving light and heat. A whole new energy is perceptible in nature and in humanity.
Grace builds on nature; the Church embraces this resurrected world and rejoices in it. Our God is both Creator and redeemer. For us here in the Augustinian, this new life and new world is represented by the little baby, Rory Kavanagh. Rory is just the latest in a long line of successive generations who have entered the Easter Mystery through Baptism. The continuity is symbolised when we light Rory's baptismal candle from the Paschal Candle blessed and honoured at last nights Vigil. He is entering into this redeemed community. With Easter, everything is on board. Our God faced reality in the raw. He triumphed over it and is alive with the Father. And, because he is alive with the Father, we too will live with the Father, but only if we are prepared to face reality. Part of the reality is sin. But because of this night, sin is reduced to a mere footnote. Through his power, we too will triumph. Have a very happy Easter!
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