At Easter, we proclaim the great good news not only vocally by singing Exultet or reading God’s Word, but also visually. We literally see this message in the Paschal Candle here beside me in church. The candle itself is designed to portray the Good News of Easter. And so our theme this night is: “Understanding the Paschal Candle”.
The paschal candle is something has been used in the Christian church for centuries of years. This candle is lit as the Church comes into Holy Night before Easter morning, and then it continues to be lit all through the Easter season, and on all the Sundays of the year apart from Advent and Lent. The paschal candle is also used at baptisms and funerals, linking those occasions back to their Easter connection with the resurrection of Christ.
Now the first and most obvious thing about a paschal candle is that it is… a candle! And the purpose of a candle is to provide light to overcome darkness. And that’s what we see this night, isn’t it? We are sitting here in a darkened church when the light of the paschal candle comes into the room, along with the glorious Easter proclamation. And as the other candles are lit from the Paschal fire, light spreads through the church (but not this year because of Covid). That in itself tells us a story of our salvation and faith.
Consider this. Before Christ came to us, all the people of this world were sitting in darkness of sin. For – as the Bible says – the wage paid by sin is death. All men sin and therefore all men die. Before Christ, we were waiting in the dark room for eternal death.
But suddenly, without our doing anything, light came into the room. “See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you”, says Isaiah. “The people sitting in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned”. This candle represents the light of Christ, who is the true light himself, coming into the world, coming for you and for me. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”.
So the first lesson we take from the paschal candle is that the light of Christ and of his resurrection has illuminated our darkness, and brought us salvation. But how?
We get a hint from the name: “paschal”. The word “paschal” comes from the Hebrew word, “pesach”, which means “passing over”. So the paschal candle reminds us of what happened at the Passover, when the plague of death struck the land of Egypt, but the homes of the Israelites were spared, because they had put on their doorposts the blood of a sacrificial Passover lamb as a sign for death to pass over those homes.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate Passover Lamb, of course. By his holy blood, by his sacrificial death at Passover time, no less, we are “passed over”. We are saved. God’s Son, Jesus Christ, is “the very Paschal Lamb, who was sacrificed for us and bore the sins of the world. By his dying he has destroyed death, and by his rising again he has restored to us everlasting life”.
Now look at this paschal candle. The Paschal Lamb is shown right here in the centre of the candle. We also see the cross, as red as blood. Without the cross, there is no Easter. The cross is the reason that Easter happens. The death of the Son of God was the price of the sins of mankind. But with those sins now fully paid for, death has lost its power over us. The resurrection of Christ shows what he won for us by his crucifixion. So we see the cross as a most glorious sign on this Holy night and Easter morning.
Around the lamb you can see that there are five nails driven into the paschal candle. These represent the five holy wounds of Christ: his hands, his feet, and his side. These are the wounds inflicted on Christ at the crucifixion, that he showed to his disciples upon his resurrection, so that they would know that it was really He. “By his wounds, we are healed”.
Now, above and below the cross and the nails on our candle are two Greek letters, Alpha and Omega. This is a very ancient symbol for Christ. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last. So this is like saying that Christ covers everything, from “A” to “Z”, as we would put it. Christ Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega. “Fear not,” our risen Lord reassures us, “I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hell”. Christ lives and reigns for all eternity.
But Christ also comes to us right here and now. We see that on the paschal candle is the year date, 2021. This year, the time in which we now live, belongs to him. We even call it “Anno Domini – the year of our Lord – 2021″. And so the date on the paschal candle shows that the risen Christ is present also in our day, just as he appeared to his disciples during the forty days following his resurrection. Right now, the risen Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father and rules all things. Jesus knows and cares for each of us. He is here with us right now, on Easter Sunday 2021.
Throughout the rest of this Easter season, then, the paschal candle will be here to remind us of our risen Lord’s presence with us and it will be lit at each Mass throughout the Easter season and on every Sunday of the year apart from Advent & Lent, since His resurrection is celebrated at each Mass.
The cross. The nails. The Alpha and Omega. And the year. Those symbols are constants on almost all paschal candles.
If I were to design a Pascal Candle, I would put two more symbols on it. At the top and the bottom of the candle I would put a blue band. The bottom band would be a band of blue water with some fish. The fish symbol is very ancient. If you say “Jesus Christ God’s Son Saviour” in Greek, it is “Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter”. The first letters of those Greek words together spell the word ICHTHYS, which means “fish”. So the fish became a symbol for Christ, and, by extension, for Christians – we still see it sometimes, often as a bumper sticker on cars. So here at the bottom of the candle there would be a blue band with some fishes swimming in the water, to make the connection between Christ’s resurrection and our baptism. The early church father Tertullian, writing around the year 200, put it this way: “We little fishes, after the image of our great fish, our ICHTHYS – Jesus Christ, are born in the water and can only be safe by continuing in the water”. So the paschal candle with its blue band of little fishes swimming in the water of life would remind us of this.
And finally, I would add another blue band at the top of the candle, which would be the sky with stars to symbolise heaven. At every Christian funeral, the Paschal candle burns brightly to remind us that Christ’s bodily resurrection on Easter morning guarantees the resurrection of our own bodies on the last day. And with the resurrection of the body comes the life everlasting, life with Christ forever. Thus the paschal candle shines for us with the hope of heaven.
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”. That is the message being proclaimed by this paschal candle. We were in darkness until the light of Christ dawned on us. The light comes at Easter, when Christ the Paschal Lamb offered the sacrifice by which we are spared death. In his holy wounds and in his death on the cross we find our healing. And the sacrifice He made, His death and resurrection, means that through Him, now on this day and all days, we have the hope of eternal life.
“I am the light of the world,” Jesus says to us on this Holy Night and Easter Day. “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” forever and ever – Amen.
But – do you believe Him?
Tomasz MAMELKA - Timperley 