(This is a description of an Easter Ceremony in Russia
during the Communist era when it was dangerous to
be a believer).

“Someone at the back of the church lit a candle,
A single point of light not able to pierce the darkness.
But then there was another and another……
Swiftly the flame was passed from one to another.
In less than a minute the church was a blaze of light –
No, not the impersonal glare of electricity -
It was a thousand individual flames united in a single faith.
Each candle lit up the face behind it.
That face bore the deep lines of suffering.
Yet is was illuminated’
And the suffering turned into joy,
Because of the certain knowledge
That the Lord has risen.
These people do not debate the resurrection.
They have experienced it in their lives.
They have not preserved faith in hostile
surroundings; It has preserved them.
Their joy is a glimpse through the curtain
Which divides us from heaven.
Lord may your Easter light shine on us this day,
And chase the shadows of the night of death away.

Michael Bordeaux