The small group waited silently in the little round cell, deep in the earth. It was mid-winter when the sun is at its farthest remove from the northern hemisphere and darkness seems to have overcome all. But there, in this burial mound, located in a loop in the river Boyne in Co Meath and predating the pyramids of Egypt, the darkness would not have the final say. "Here it comes," someone whispered. And then the slanting rays of the brilliant December sun came in over the lintel and, like a man holding a lighted lantern, moved down the narrow sloping passage until the rays hit the walls of the inner chamber. The light shone in the eyes and lit up the faces of those present and for a few minutes they marveled at this annual observable miracle of Newgrange.
It is thought that the passage-grave people of this ancient primitive civilization built these amazing tombs, feats of sophisticated engineering, as a religious response to nature. They hint too, of a deep reluctance to believe that the light of life is quenched forever when the body is laid in the earth. Can it be that thousands of years before Christ there was a yearning in the human heart for a light that overcame darkness, for a life that did not end in death? Did these ancestors sense that there was something more? Something beyond words and yet drawing them to give expression by building these elaborate passage-graves where, against all odds, the sun would shine even if only for the briefest time on the darkest day of winter.
Light was the Creator’s priority in the scheme of things in Genesis, His first word, "Let there be light." This theme flows through the whole Bible and is most fully articulated in St John’s gospel: "In the beginning was the Word…all things came to be through Him…In Him was life and the life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (Jn 1). Because Jesus is the true Light, the splendour of the Father, darkness will never win out. When it seemed that the Light was forever quenched as Jesus died an appalling death, and His disciples lost hope (Lk 24) and courage, huddling together in fear (Jn 20), He, risen from the dead, alive, unbelievably alive, came among them, walked, talked and ate with them.
This same risen Jesus is with us today, Light and Life of our being. He is among us more nearly than the breath in our bodies. He is with us especially in our darkness, when we feel lost and alone and without hope. "He will give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death…" (Lk 1). His presence among us is mostly unspectacular.
"God comes, as I had always known
he would come, unannounced,
remarkable merely for the absence of clamour"
(RS Thomas)
This Easter season let us delight in this Light, in Jesus whom death could not hold. Whatever disasters befall us, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, sickness or depression, He is with us. We do not stand now by an ancient pre-Celtic tomb, waiting for the sun’s rays to light up the chamber for a few brief minutes. No. The rising sun shines on a stone that has been rolled away for ever, on a tomb that is empty. And in that light-filled emptiness we discern the truth and beauty and the love of our lives.
Sr Redempta Twomey