Easter Day

This year, the Christian Festival of Easter coincides with the Muslim observance of Ramadan and the Jewish Festival of Passover. This is something that happens about every thirty years. Of course, the coincidence of Easter and Passover is a reminder that so much of our observances at Easter find their roots in the language and imagery of Passover. It was for Passover that Jesus came to Jerusalem that first Holy Week. The synoptic gospels suggest that the last supper was a Passover meal, while John’s gospel times the crucifixion of Jesus so that it coincides with the sacrifice of the Passover lamb in the Temple in Jerusalem.

By placing the events in the context of Passover, the evangelists are reminding us of that foundational narrative of the Exodus, when the people of Israel were freed from slavery and spent forty years in the wilderness. Of course, when we read the life of Moses, we come to recognise that this is a bitter-sweet tale. Moses the law-giver, the one who led the people out of their captivity, never reaches the Promised Land. According to tradition, he saw the land across the Jordan from Mount Nebo, which is now in the Jordan. From the summit of this mountain, one can see across the Jordan River to the hills of Judaea and on a clear day, one can see Jerusalem itself. But Moses died before he was ever to reach the promised land.

A Christian Church and Monastery has stood at the summit of Mount Nebo since the days of Byzantium. The church contains within it a baptistery which dates from 597, the year that St Augustine arrived on these shores. Beside it is an intriguing inscription which refers to the baptistery. It is described with the Greek word: phōtistērion, φωτιστηριον. The inscription reads: ‘With the aid of our Lod Jesus Christ, the work of the holy sanctuary with the phōtistērion was completed’. Another medallion with an inscription on the other side dates this work precisely to the year 597.

The word phōtistērion means ‘place of enlightenment’, a site of illumination. In some churches, the baptistery and the phōtistērion were two separate rooms, but what is evident, is that as part of the baptismal rite, from the earliest times, the newly baptised were presented with a lighted candle. They emerged from the dark waters of baptism into a place filled with warmth and light. The ritual of baptism was a moment of enlightenment in the life of the believer. And so, if we want to make sense of the service which takes place on Easter Day, as the whole church is filled with the light of the Easter candle and we celebrate the sacrament of baptism, it is worth pondering the significance of this word.

Of course, we have come to associate the word ‘enlightenment’ with the age of enlightenment, that intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Commentators often associate the word ‘enlightenment’ with the advent of modernity and a general trend of declining religiosity, attended by the advances of science and the pursuit of individual liberty.  ‘Enlightenment’ becomes a reaction against the life of faith, rather than its crowning glory.

But why did the early Christians describe ‘baptism’ as a form of enlightenment? Put simply, it is because of the story that has been told in this place and in so many churches in the course of the last three days. The passion narrative, the story of the trail and crucifixion of Jesus, is a story that reminds us of the presence and power of death over human existence, and indeed, over the whole of creation.

We see the power of death today in the graves of Bucha and the ongoing war in Ukraine. We have seen the power of death in the daily statistics of those who have died from COVID these last two years. We see the power of death in the faces of refugees crammed into little boats in the Mediterranean, the English Channel and the Black Sea. We see the power of death in our seemingly futile efforts to reverse the desolation of our planet. We see the power of death….

And although death is not the same as evil or sin, we know that the consequences of our sin are often deadly, and we know the grief and the pain it causes. We know what it is like to feel overwhelmed by the darkness and deadliness of death.

But at Easter we celebrate the good news that death is not the last word. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

At the heart of the story that we have heard in the gospel today is the conviction that there is nothing lost that God cannot find again. Nothing dead that cannot live again in the presence of his Spirit. No heart so dark, so hopeless, so broken, that it cannot be enlightened and brought back, warmed back to the life of love.

And love wins every time. It cannot be diminished by pain or suffering. It will never be overwhelmed by the deadliness of death. This is the illumination, the enlightenment, at the heart of the Easter mystery. And all the symbolism of the Easter ceremonies, with the Paschal candle and the illumination of the church, all of this teaches us that the fire of God’s love, the light of Christ, will overcome the darkness. His love gives us the strength and the confidence to reach out to one another so that we need not be overwhelmed by fear or anxiety. We need not despair. Love has the power to transform the world, to redeem what we have lost. This is our hope. This is our faith.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he tells again the story of the face of Moses shining brightly when he descends from Mount Sinai with the Law. Meditating on light and darkness and the good news of the resurrection, he says: ‘For it is the God who said “Let light shine out of darkness”, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’.

In a few moments, Loveday will join with us in declaring that same faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I invite you to pray for her that, as she embraces the life of faith, her heart may continue to be enlightened by the new life of Jesus Christ, and that she may rejoice with us as we say:

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!