If there was ever a time when human beings have been justified in repeating to one another the words of Christ’s messenger at the door of the empty tomb: ‘Do not be afraid…you have nothing to fear,’ surely the time is now.

It is as though all of humankind’s most perverted rage and fear had to be gathered up into one ultimate evil, in the most destructive act possible, to kill the creator, to destroy the source of life, and by doing so, spend itself.

Tonight/today we know he did. Christ took on himself the concentrated fury of all human sinfulness, the very worst that human folly could do, and it was not enough.

The back of sin has been broken, and as long as we see the world in the light of this new Easter candle, nothing can ever really terrify us again.

The resurrection is the heart of our faith. The foundation of it. Because the terrifying finality of death is seen to be a lie, we know that so much else that world holds to be true is a lie. We know that truth is, after all, God’s, and only God’s word can guarantee it.

We know that the experience of the senses is a limited thing, and that we will never know the world as it really is if we rely only on that, only on our abilities.

The resurrection is the basis of our hope. It is that golden thread that runs through our lives, it is the sure sign that God is true to God’s promises. That for each of us there is infinitely more to come. We would be rather foolish indeed if we were to give in to the temptation to look around us and say; ‘This is what my life is. This and no more.

God has great things in store for each one of us, a great future. We can of course refuse to accept that future, but we can never destroy its possibility.

The resurrection urges us, excites us to love. To build between ourselves and our world a bond of concern, of involvement. We must never suppose that the divine work of Christ is a substitute for human effort. Quite the opposite really. Christ’s triumph over the power of sin, and inevitably of human weakness, demands of us that we ratify and reflect and imitate it in our own lives, actively, positively, not simply swept along but rather by the freely conscious choices that we make.

On this Easter night/day we have welcomed Christ our light. That light can be challenged, it can be dimmed, but it can never go out. May the light of Christ guide your steps.

Fr Andrew