A familiar expression is “I can see light at the end of the tunnel”, and we use it to indicate some optimism that whatever difficulty, tragedy, crisis we are involved in there is some hope that things will change for the better or there will be some answer that helps to soothe the pain of what has gone before.

Lighting the Easter fire and carrying the paschal candle through the darkened church perhaps expresses for us in a symbolic but vivid way the hope or change that happened with Jesus rising from the dead – something new is happening, quietly at first but then spreading far and wide as our individual candles are lit and we dare to proclaim the Exultet:

“Accept this Easter candle. May it always dispel the darkness of this night.”

In offering our part of the Easter flame to the Lord we pray that whatever darkness touches or threatens our lives may be dispelled and that the Lord will fill us with the hope founded in his rising from the dead. It is not easy to know how the darkness will be lifted, and if the truth be told it is does not necessarily happen the way we want or expect and indeed the time-scale may be much longer than we would wish, but our proclamation tonight of Christ, the Morning Star, who came back from the dead, encourages us to hope and pray that eventually our own personal darkness may be lifted and that we will share in the joy of those who first heard the news of Jesus rising from the dead.

We may wonder what the women felt as they went to the tomb that first Easter to anoint the body of Jesus. For ones so caring and faithful there must have been a great sense of loss and bewilderment, especially as he had suffered such a cruel and painful death, but was there also a little glimpse of hope that it was not the end, and they were going there just as the day-light was rising to remain close to him, to grieve for him, but in doing so to sense his spirit, his presence, his love still alive in them?

Their straining for this glimpse of light at the tunnel’s end was rewarded with the news that Jesus had risen and they were to be the messengers to the apostles and others that this was so and that they would see him again. An unexpected gift to those who had been most devoted to the care of Jesus, and an invitation to all who have found faith in him not to give up, but perhaps rather to reach out and go to the tomb with the women, there to hear the good news of the Lord’s resurrection and the hope therein for all believers who are willing to remain with him in the dark days of crucifixion and death, in whatever shape or form that takes, searching, straining for the little glimmer of light which says I am with you through it all, stay with me.

On the bigger scale what we celebrate tonight in a special way is the Lord’s Passover – in recalling the freeing of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and the promises of the prophets of a new age in which God’s salvation would be made manifest and mankind renewed, we are brought to recognise that in Christ’s dying and rising to new life we have been freed from the slavery of sin and brought to new life in him. The verses of the Exsultet express this powerfully for us:

“This is  the night when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow in holiness.
This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.”

The connection is made there between what happened to Jesus and what happens to us through our baptism – exactly as St. Paul tells us:

“When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death; in other words when we were baptised we went into the tomb with him and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life.”

The new life of grace has been given to us in baptism, the sin of Adam wiped clean, it has been confirmed by the gift of the Spirit in confirmation, and strengthened and renewed for us each time we receive Holy Communion.

It is very fitting that at this solemn vigil where we recall the beauty of God’s gift to us that we now renew our baptismal promises, asking that we may continue to be preserved from all evil, internally and externally, that we may persevere in our faith in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as revealed to us by Jesus, and that we may continue to witness to this faith as loyal and good servants in his Holy Catholic Church.

It is an important moment for us all and we accept the sprinkling of the holy water upon us as confirmation of God’s blessing upon us as we pledge our commitment to these promises, perhaps first made for us at baptism by our parents and godfathers, but now affirmed with full knowledge and conviction that they are our own.

May the peace and joy of the Risen Christ touch our hearts and minds this evening and may we carry him with us into whatever darkness we may face, confident that the flame which never dims, Jesus Christ the Morning Star, may shed his peaceful light upon us.