Sunday, April 16, 2017

Easter Sermon



Alleluia! Christ is Risen indeed!
When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to Jesus tomb early on Sunday morning, they must have had heavy hearts. They had stayed home, as required, for the Sabbath but as soon as they were able, as the day was dawning, they made their way back to Jesus’ resting place. They found the tomb much as they had left it, guarded and sealed.

Matthew is different from the other Gospels – much more dramatic in his rendering of events. Just as he is the only Gospel writer to mention an earthquake at the crucifixion, now, also, he mentions an earthquake in the garden. Remember how the earthquake on Friday had drawn amazement from the centurion who said this man must be the son of God. This earthquake and the appearance of an angel frighten the soldiers guarding the tomb so much that they pass out. The angel even has the audacity to roll back the stone and sit on it. The power of the Roman Empire and the Jewish State mean nothing here.

The women do not faint or run away. They listen. They listen to the words of the Angel that Jesus has been raised, they examine the empty tomb and they are sent to summon the disciples. As they are going Jesus, himself, appears to them and gives them more explicit instructions that they are to meet in Galilee.

The women must have been afraid as both the angel and Jesus tell them not to be, but then their reactions are to worship and to take the message to the others. They are witnesses to something which is so unbelievable that ever since people have spent a lot of time and energy figuring out how this did not happen. Well at least not really.

When I was a teenager York Minster was struck with lightening which caused a bad fire which did a lot of structural damage. Many people thought it was a judgement from God for consecrating a guy called David Jenkins as Bishop. God was obviously a little directionally challenged as York is well over an hour from Durham whose cathedral sits up on a hill and would be an easy target for divine retribution.

Anyway, what David Jenkins had said was that if the Resurrection of Jesus was simple a magic trick (a conjouring trick with bones) it did not prove very much, other than God might be a good magician. He went on to say that the Resurrection “was not just a single event but a series of experiences which gradually convinced people that Jesus life, power, purpose and personality were actually continuing.”

I am not one of those people who is going to spend much time worrying about how God did things, what Jesus looked like, or whether you really could touch him or not. The simple fact is, that from that moment onwards people were utterly and completely transformed by the ongoing life of Christ in His followers and that continues today.

I may have told this story before, but when I was a university student I struggled to come to terms with life up until that point. It had been complicated and hard. Church had always been a refuge but gradually I moved away from this institution which seemed to have too many rules, too many rude and opinionated people and represented God, who I really did not want to believe in any more.

I was doing pretty well as an atheist, anger was really helpful. So, one Easter Eve, I decided to prive things once and for all. I happened to be walking past the church Eve at the time of the Easter Vigil. As I walked up the steps I said, “Right God, see how much I believe in you now!”
If there is an idiots guide to Atheism I would suggest that the first thing in it should be not to talk to God. Anyway, I was pretty good at standing at the back scowling until the Gloria. As some of you know it disappears during Lent in favor of something more solemn and when it returns the Easter Gospel is just around the corner. Well that was the end of my rebellion. My sulking attempt at disbelief was no match for the sheer power of the dawning of the Resurrection, of the story I knew would be recounted any moment.

But is that just wishful thinking, some sort of self-invented magic trick. God, after all, does not seem to do very much magic most of the time. We often find ourselves much more in fear than we do in reassurance. We find ourselves feeling confused and alone – so what is the point of this Resurrection thing – what difference does it make.

You can easily imagine it makes none at all. You will leave here today and walk back to the same reality which you left an hour ago – good or bad. Just like when I walked out of that Church that evening I would spend years gluing myself back together little pieces at a time. All I can say is what is true for me. It was true than and it is true now.

There are days when I am very afraid – I watch the news, see my kids go out on their own, realize I am moving to a phase of life, wondering about health and bills and all those so mundane and yet all-consuming things which chew at all of us. I could say simply. It is out of my hands, God is in control – but for me, that seems to be passing the buck. Those women on that morning had to prove the truth of that Resurrection experience through their actions.

You see the Resurrection of Jesus is something in which we participate – we share a risen life. We are asked not to be afraid, not because there is nothing which will scare us, but because we are redirected by today’s events. It is not a magic pill, it is a journey of engagement. It is a journey for which we are usually ill prepared and which we often wonder about. But stop long enough to kneel and the feet of Jesus and know that the Risen Lord knows exactly who you are and longs for you to reach out.

My younger self was right, the church is full of annoying, opinionated, hypocritical people – I did not find a new church to sure myself of this – I just realized I was one of them. We are all real people. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were real people. Whilst the excitement of those first few days, weeks, months might have given them a blindness to their precarious situation, there must have come a point where the words in the garden, “Do not be afraid” became a lot less about the extraordinary and a lot more about the ordinary.

Stop long enough to look. Stop long enough to listen, to touch and taste. Christ is Risen, allow that to be an invitation to participate in this journey of light and life.

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