“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.†This, people say, is an ancient Chinese proverb. Wherever there is oppression, we will light a candle and scatter the works of darkness. In the darkness of this night, we light a fire, and from that fire, a candle; and we proclaim the light of Christ. The darkness that enveloped the cross on Calvary, the darkness that came over the land and clouded the minds of the disciples, is lifted. The early-morning sun that greeted the women who went to the tomb could not lift their sorrows, but the message they would hear there was like a candle in the darkness. The light had come back into the world. At first, they could not believe it and were shaken with fear. But it was true. Jesus is not among the dead. He is alive.
The young man at the tomb gave a message to those women: “Tell the disciples and Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee.’†Galilee is the place where it all began. It is the home place, where the disciples first met the Lord. So for us, disciples of the Lord today, this is our Galilee, here where we live. Like the first disciples, we, too, have our own struggles and our own darkness to contend with, in the confusion of our lives, in our losses and breakdown, in the sorrows that come our way. The cure to all those things is the light of Christ.