I can still remember the thrill of being allowed to be present at the Easter Vigil Mass for the very first time. As dawn broke, ever so slowly the church began to fill with the cold grey light of an Easter morning. How the readers could see to read I couldn’t tell, but out of the darkness came the story of salvation history, beginning in the creation, and through Noah and Abraham, Moses and Isaiah, Ezekiel and Paul, to Matthew’s retelling of the first Easter. Suddenly we were outside, the new fire kindled and the priest sang first hesitantly, then with increasing confidence, the Exultet. Then back inside, the paschal candle lifted high, the organ thundering, bells sounding, and the ancient Easter greeting ringing in our ears: AlleIuia Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

At St Matthew’s, the Vigil begins at 6am on Easter Day. It is an early start, but well worth the temporary inconvenience for such an unforgettable experience. With the Parish Eucharist and Solemn Evensong to follow on, it will truly be a day of celebration to remember.

There’s an ever present and increasing temptation to go for what I once heard a wise old priest call "a cheap Easter". He was describing an Easter without Palm Sunday, without the Garden of Gethsemane, without the Cross. A cheap Easter, which goes for glory, without suffering, and in doing so, rather misses the point.
Its one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith that from apparent failure springs the ultimate cosmic triumph. Christ crucified becomes Christ, Risen and Ascended. Time and again, where people have entered deeply into the suffering of the cross, and experienced for themselves the joy of Christ’s resurrection, they see in their own lives, and the lives of those around them, ‘other resurrections’; resurrections of the spirit and of the heart, as that which was dead comes to life again.

As we enter into the mystery of the cross, and the glory of the resurrection, may God give us the eyes of faith to experience resurrection life in ourselves, and to see it in those around us.

This comes with warm good wishes, and my prayers for you.

Fr Peter