FWIW The musings of a webmaster Good Friday 6 April 2007 What's this?

Easter Eve people

The ceremonies of Easter Eve are some of the most powerful in the Christian calendar.  There is a palpable sense of anticipation: something extraordinary is about to happen.

The service begins in a profound darkness.  That darkness just glimpsed on the horizon at the start of Holy Week, but which has been rolling relentlessly towards us, becoming all enveloping and extinguishing hope as the brutal events of Good Friday unfold. Even 2000 years later, those of us who walk through the events of this Holy Week find a vestige of that darkness takes up residence within us. How much more shattering then, must have been the experience for those first disciples who had yet to see the light of that first Easter Day?

But as we sit, enveloped in that darkness on Easter Eve we reflect on the story of how we reached this point.  The story of God's faithfulness to his people. And almost imperceptibly there is a shift, a changing of something. The darkness is no longer that of 3am when all hope is gone, but that of just before dawn, pregnant of possibility. And then, extraordinarily, miraculously, a spark of fire. A candle in the blackness - guttering at first - a flame so tentative that the slightest breath could extinguish it. But then growing in intensity to the point where we are able to approach it, allow it to rekindle our hope, a hope which we in turn share with our neighbours - more and more, The Light of Christ, until the church is ablaze!

The day of resurrection!

earth tell it out abroad;

the Passover of gladness,

The Passover of God...

"Let now the angelic hosts of heaven exult; let the divine mysteries be joyfully celebrated; and let a sacred trumpet sound the victory of so great a King. Let the earth also rejoice being illuminated with such radiant light, and let men know that the splendour of our eternal King has chased away the darkness which overspread the whole world... This is the night in which Christ broke the chains of death... This is the night of which it is written: And the night shall be as light as the day and the night is my illumination of my delights. Therefore the holiness of this night blots out crimes, washes away sins... It banishes enmities, produces concord and humbles empires."

Ah, how we Christians need to be awed! We need, from time to time, to give ourselves over to something bigger than us. To be humbled, to realise that God's love is pure gift, not something that we can ever deserve.

We raggle-taggle bunch of sojourners, disorganised, squabbling, lacking in faith, all of us unlikely to pass inspection - we need this night. We need this as a catalyst to recommitment: and as we gather to commit ourselves yet again to trying to keep our baptismal vows, we pray that the light of this night will continue to burn within us. Maybe, this time, we can do better. Maybe, this time, we can keep the faith. Maybe, this time, we can love Christ and love one another.

Maybe.

We are an Easter Eve people.  We are on the threshold of something extraordinary. Maybe, this time, we will be ready for the dawn.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

Thanks be to God!