Easter Vigil 2026
Welcome to parishioners and visitors who have gathered in St Mary’s Cathedral on this most sacred night.
The Easter Vigil is unlike any other night of the year. It is the night when we keep watch. The night when we listen again to the great story of our salvation. The night when darkness gives way to light, and death yields to life.
Through this rich tapestry of readings, the Church leads us step by step through the story of God’s love—a love that has never wavered, never withdrawn, never abandoned his people.
We began at the beginning.
In the book of Genesis, we heard of creation itself: the very origin of our being. We are not accidents. We are not afterthoughts. We are created in the image and likeness of God—fashioned in love, sustained in love, and called to live in love.
And yet, as history unfolds, we recognise something painfully familiar. The beauty of creation is marred by the frailty of human nature. Again and again, darkness asserts itself—oppression, violence, division, fear.
And yet, God does not withdraw.
In the great story of the Exodus, we see God act decisively. He leads his people out of slavery, through the waters, into freedom. The Red Sea becomes the passage from death to life, from bondage to liberation.
This is revelation. It tells us who God is—and what God does.
He is the one who leads his people out of darkness into light.
And tonight, through the prophet Isaiah, we heard that invitation again—clear, urgent, and filled with tenderness:
“Come to the water, all you who are thirsty…
Come, without money, without price.”
It is an extraordinary invitation.
God does not wait for us to be worthy.
He does not demand that we earn his love.
He simply calls: Come with your thirst, with your need, with your longing.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways—it is the Lord who speaks.”
God’s way is always greater than ours.
Like the rain that falls upon the earth and does not return without watering it, so too God’s word goes forth—and it accomplishes what it is sent to do.
And what is it sent to do? Answer: To bring life, to awaken hope, to heal wounds and to restore what had been lost.
That word, that promise, that invitation—has taken flesh in Jesus Christ.
In him, we see the fullness of God’s love.
In his life, we see the pattern of true humanity.
And in his Passion, we see love carried to its furthest limit.
On the Cross, Christ confronts the sin of all ages—the darkness of fear, division, and death—and he does not turn away. He enters into it. He bears it. He transforms it.
On this night—the story reaches its climax.
The tomb is empty.
Death has been defeated.
Life has entered in.
This is not simply a comforting idea. It is the turning point of history. The purpose of creation and the promise of the covenant are fulfilled in the Risen Jesus.
At the Easter Vigil, people of faith proclaim that that victory is not distant from us.
It is given to us.
In Baptism, we pass through the waters—not of the Red Sea, but into the very death and resurrection of Christ. What was prefigured in Exodus is fulfilled in the font of baptism. We die with Christ to rise with him and in him we become a new creation.
Tonight, throughout the whole Church, and here among us, men and women are baptised. Together with all of us, they will make their baptismal promises—renouncing darkness, professing faith, choosing life.
Then, for the first time, they will come to the Table of the Lord where, they will receive not a symbol, but the living Christ himself.
And we, with them, will proclaim the mystery of faith:
the death of the Lord, his resurrection, and the promise that he will come again.
This is who we are. We are not people of the tomb.
We are not people of darkness. We are an Easter people.
A people called out of darkness into light.
A people whose thirst has been met.
A people whose lives have been claimed by grace.
Most Rev. Anthony J. Ireland
Archbishop of Hobart
4 April 2026