Sermon Easter Day 2016

Mary Magdalene

about 1535-40, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo. The National Gallery.

Acts 10:34-43

1 Corinthians 15.1-11

John 20:1-18

Why do we celebrate today? Why is this the greatest festival, the reason why Christians get out of bed in the morning, even when the clocks have gone forward?

Christ is risen, and that changes everything. It changed everything for Mary Magdalene and the disciples in today’s gospel reading. It changed everything for Paul who spoke to us of his resurrection faith. It changed everything for Cornelius, the first Gentile who didn’t have to accept the Jewish law before becoming a Christian.

It changes everything for us, and in just the same way. By meeting the risen Lord, the living person who is both the heart and head of his church, the Lord of creation who walks in the world to make all things new.

Christ is risen. He is alive, today. Anyone can meet him and be changed by him. But do we recognise him? Mary Magdalene didn’t, at first. Her eyes were fixed on the tomb. Of course they were. Because, as humanity has known from the beginning, death ends everything. And now even the dead body of Jesus, the object of her grief, is gone. No wonder she stares into the darkness of the tomb. She sees a vision of angels, who ask her why she is weeping. But even this does not move her from her grief. She replies as if this were an everyday occurrence, as though they were strangers passing in the street. “They have taken my Lord away.”

She turns round – very significant, that, she turns away from the tomb, the place of death. She sees Jesus, but does not recognise him, speaks to him as though he were the gardener. Her mind is still in the place of death. She turns back to the tomb. We know she does, because when Jesus calls her by name, she turns round again. And finally, now, she knows him.

Turning round is repentance. That is what the word repentance means in the Bible. To see Jesus, to see who he really is, Mary needs to turn around. She needs to turn away from the tomb, the place of death, to the risen Lord, the Lord of life, the victor over death.

The tomb is where our sins are. Christ died for our sins, says St Paul. And in another place he says that in dying Christ died to sin, once for all, and in living he lives to God.

Sin and death go together. Humanity’s fixation on its own limited resources, our failure to depend on God who is infinite goodness, leads to tragedy. Rivalry, violence, accusation, casting out, hatred and envy all lead to death. So in the death of Christ our sins are placed where they should be, dead, in the tomb. That’s the first part of the good news of Jesus Christ, the reason why we celebrate today. But without the second part it means nothing.

The second part of the good news is Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. In living, he lives to God. He is the representative human, the “Son of Man” as he calls himself in the gospels. He is the new Adam, the new human nature redeemed from sin. In him all humanity dies to sin, and rises to God. In him all who believe are adopted as children of God, and can then say, truly, in him, that we are dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ. St Paul says, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

This is the meaning of our baptism, which we are called to make our own through faith as we follow Jesus in our lives. In the waters of the font we were baptised into Christ’s death, so that, emerging from the font, we rise with him to new and eternal life.

The resurrection of Christ is the heart of the good news. It is how we are saved and come to share the life of God, which is eternal life.

Jesus says to Mary Magdalene today, “Go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”. The resurrection proves that God is Jesus’ loving Father, the creator who will never give up on his creation, continually bringing new things to birth. And in Christ we too can call his God our God, his Father our Father.

If the death of Christ is how our sins die, his resurrection is how we enter eternal life, the life that God lives. Without the resurrection there is no good news.

There are some interpretations of Christianity which seem to regard the death of Jesus as the most important part of the gospel, seeing it as Jesus being punished for our sins in our place, so that we get acquitted. Now that is one metaphor used by St Paul, a piece of courtroom imagery, but there are many other scriptural metaphors that also seek to describe the mystery of salvation. We shouldn’t read just one. And it is a metaphor in a minor key: the major key is that of Christ the triumphant victor, the mighty warrior who has fought with and defeated death, and rescued humanity which had been held captive by death.

We are not to stay looking into the tomb, as Mary Magdalene did. We are to turn around. That is to say, we are to repent. Because when we turn around from our sins and leave them behind we find ourselves facing the one who all along has been calling us by name, waiting for us. Jesus, risen from the dead, the triumphant victor over all of humanity’s sin and death. My God is your God, he says. My Father is your Father. Jesus opens to us the eternal life of bliss and love that he shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity which is God.

So we are to turn around, to repent. Don’t look any longer into the tomb, the place where our dead sins have been disposed of. Turn instead to Jesus, who calls us all by name, and waits for us. Believe in him as Saviour and Lord, because, in him, we are adopted as children of God. In him we die to sin and rise to new and eternal life.

That is the good news, that is why we celebrate today, that is why this is the greatest festival. This is what gets Christians out of bed in the morning, even when the clocks have gone forward.

Sermon at the Easter Vigil 2016

Women at the Tomb of Christ, very early in the morning on the first day of the week.
Photo: Matthew Duckett

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Genesis 22:1-18

Exodus 14:10-end, 15:20-21

Romans 6:3-11

Luke 24.1-12

“On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had accompanied Jesus came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.”

If you would like a private devotion for Easter week, may I suggest that you do something that the Lectionary doesn’t do, and read the last chapter of St Luke’s Gospel, chapter 24, all in one go.

We have just heard the first part of that chapter. A new day has begun, it is first light, early dawn. But what becomes apparent as you read through the last chapter of Luke is that this new day just goes on, and on, and on. It is a day that never ends, and all the resurrection events that are related in the last chapter happen on that one same day.

The angels speak to the women, and they to the apostles, who don’t believe them. That same day two disciples are walking to Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem; the risen Lord walks with them, but they do not know it. As they get near to Emmaus they remark that it is almost evening and the day is nearly over; they invite the stranger in, and suddenly he is revealed to them in the breaking of the bread.

And then, suddenly, it is as though time stops. That same hour they returned to Jerusalem – seven miles, on foot, that same hour. They tell the others how they have met the Lord, and hear from them that he has, meantime, appeared to Simon. Then the Lord himself stands among them, speaks to them, eats, opens their minds to the scriptures, leads them out to Bethany, and ascends into heaven.

And all this happens in this one day that never ends.

Now we may well be thinking, hang on a minute, doesn’t Luke tell us in Acts, his second book, that forty days passed between the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus? Indeed he does. So why, in his Gospel, does he tell us that it happened the same day?

I don’t think this is a mistake. Luke is too good a storyteller to have have failed to spot such a basic continuity error. What I think he is doing is telling us about two different kinds of time.

Firstly, there is the time of history, the time we are used to in this world, time marked by the clock, that passes and is gone, through which we live our limited span of life. In the book of Acts Luke begins the story of the Church, which then carries on through history. So, naturally, he tells that story as it unfolds through historical time, beginning with the forty days between the resurrection and the ascension.

But at the end of his Gospel he is telling us about something different. Historical time gives way to resurrection time. The endless cycle of days that pass and are gone is broken open. In his resurrection Jesus has stepped out of the seven days of time that repeat and repeat but go nowhere, and has stepped into the eighth day, the day of resurrection, the day of God’s eternity that is without limit.

The last chapter of Luke’s Gospel then becomes the story of what happens when the disciples encounter this new kind of time, what happens when God’s eternity erupts into history, what happens when God’s limitless life bursts in to the world where, up until now, life’s brief span has been measured out and is gone.

So the new day with which this chapter opens is something completely different: God’s eternity rising on the world of history, the resurrection exploding into the world as we know it and changing everything.

The people to whom this news is entrusted are women. They are named, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the Mother of James, named not only here but also in Chapter 8. Luke was not an eyewitness of the Gospel events so his naming them strongly suggests that these women were the sources of some of his information. This in itself is startling, for in the patriarchal society of the day women could not give evidence in court, but in the Gospel the testimony of these women becomes the rock solid foundation for the faith of the Church. Things are shifting already. The boundaries that Jesus was continually crossing in his life, the outsiders he was always bringing in, become central in this new life of the resurrection.

The other disciples don’t yet believe. Their minds just aren’t big enough to grasp the enormity of the triumph of Jesus Christ, his resurrection something they never imagined. They need to be opened to the new life that Jesus has entered, they too need to step into resurrection time in which life is God and God is without limit. And they will; Jesus will open their minds and send them out to change the world. The Book of Acts tells the story of that, the story of the Church, a people who live both in time and in eternity, walking with Jesus in the resurrection day that never ends whilst at the same time carrying on their mission through history.

And this is what the church does still. There are 28 chapters in Acts in the Bible, but the story of the Church is continuous; we are probably now living through something like Acts chapter 600. And, at the same time, we are still in Luke chapter 24, in the day that never ends, walking with Jesus to Emmaus, recognising him in the breaking of the bread as he opens our minds to his word.

God’s eternity is present in every moment of the time that passes and is gone. The Church is the concrete living reality that joins the two together in mission and service, in prayer and sacrament; walking through history whilst living with the Spirit of Christ, risen from the dead. In the words of an Easter hymn, now is eternal life, if risen with Christ we stand.

As we remember our baptisms and celebrate the Eucharist tonight God’s eternity once more bursts in on the time that passes and is gone. The Resurrection of Christ opens to us eternal life, here and now, and throughout our lives as we follow him along the road, meet him in the breaking of bread and hear him speaking to us in the words of scripture.

Sermon Good Friday 2016

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9

John chapters 18 and 19

As we’ve been noting the liturgy of Holy Week catches us up in the drama, invites us to experience with intensity and depth the events of this week.

The liturgy of this week is structured as a drama, a mystery play, and we are all its actors. I was speaking to Martin our cleaner last night and he said he could tell how busy a week it was from the way things kept changing in church. It is like theatre – a new scene for every act, and this afternoon the sacristy is piled high with the scenery that isn’t being used in today’s part of the story.

The previous parts of this drama began with the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in Palm Sunday, the crowds acclaiming him as King and Messiah. But the tension mounted and last night we were behind closed doors with the small group of disciples in the intimate scene of the Last Supper. The authorities were hunting for Jesus, and in his last meal he gave them the parting commandment to love one another, enacted in the washing of the feet, and the parting gift of the Eucharist and the priesthood to sustain his church to the end of time. Then we went with him to the Garden of Gethsemane, there to pray awhile, even as his betrayer was at hand.

But today, in this bare and empty church, the reading of the Passion from St John has such dramatic power that little is needed in the way of supporting scenery or props.

John acutely observes the characters of those involved, he tells the story superbly in their interplay, their parrying of words off one another.

There was the crowd, the priests and the temple police, we can treat them as really one character, for they speak with one voice, in the end all shouting out “crucify him”, because that is what everyone else is shouting, and no-one knows who said it first.

For them Jesus is a transgressor, a blasphemer, impure, unclean. He must be got rid of. Their voice is the voice of accusation and casting out, the “spirit of this world” as John’s Gospel calls it, the way that humans have behaved from the beginning.

But the crowd are canny. When they bring him to Pilate, they do not say what Jesus is accused of, and avoid answering Pilate when he asks. “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” Why do they say this? Perhaps they want Pilate to come up with his own charges, and deal with the matter himself. It would be convenient if they can get rid of Jesus while at the same time ensuring that the blame for his death rests clearly with Rome. All fingers of blame will then be pointing, with their own, away from themselves.

Pilate certainly will have heard of Jesus. The tumult of Palm Sunday will not have escaped his notice. To his mind someone entering Jerusalem the way Jesus did must be making a claim to a political power that is a rival and alternative to Rome. Thus his question to Jesus: “Are you the King of the Jews”? A question laden with irony, as “King of the Jews” was a title conferred by Rome, and the last one to hold it had been the Herod who died just after Jesus was born. Since then there had been no-one trustworthy and compliant enough to hold that puppet title.

So the threat in Pilate’s question to Jesus is clear: only Rome decides who is the King of the Jews, so watch yourself. But Pilate is a slippery character, and he’s scared. He doesn’t understand what is going on, and he senses he is losing control. He’s on the back foot as he questions Jesus further, and receives answers he cannot comprehend about a Kingdom that is not from this world.

Probably thinking that Jesus is a harmless dreamer, he has him flogged and dressed in the robe and crown of mockery, in the hope that this will satisfy the crowd. But it does not. The crowd, the priests and temple police, are forced to show their hand: “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.”

At last Pilate knows the charge they are bringing against Jesus; and he is even more afraid. Who is this man? To a pagan Roman the idea that the gods might have sons was not a strange one – many myths were told of the offspring of gods and mortals, they were usually heroes and mighty warriors, and always portentous individuals, you opposed them at your peril.

But Pilate is scared, and he’s on the back foot. He needs to deal with the crowd; matters of justice and truth do not concern him. So he hands Jesus over to be crucified. But like many weak people he turns his fear into a joke, a bit of puerile mockery in the title he writes on the cross: “This is the King of the Jews”. Mockery, not so much of Jesus, about whom Pilate does not care, but of the crowd: this is the king you deserve. Rome has spoken!

What then unfolds can be interpreted from three perspectives.

Firstly, according to the crowd, the crucifixion of Jesus is what he deserves. His guilt, and their own innocence, seems plain to them. They are completely convinced by the spirit of this world, the voice of accusation and casting out with which they have spoken all along. And remember that John’s gospel tells us this is how all humanity has behaved from the beginning. The death of Jesus, in fact, shows the crowd their own sin, but like the Pharisees in John chapter 9 they are blind to it.

Secondly, according to Pilate, a troublesome situation has been avoided, a riot defused, and at no significant cost to anyone worth talking about. The innocence of the man he has sent to the cross does not concern him. The power structures of the world carry on undisturbed. The Empire can carry on its business. But truth and justice – very basic things about being human – find no place in this view of what is happening.

Thirdly, there is the perspective of the Mother of Jesus and the Disciple, at the foot of the cross. For them, what is taking place there is reshaping everything. New relationships come into being: “Here is your son… here is your Mother”. Jesus breathes out his spirit, but this is the spirit of God, the creator spirit sent forth to renew the face of the earth. The tide of blood and water flowing from the opened side of Jesus speaks under a figure of the tide of sacramental grace, Baptism and the Eucharist that will carry the life of Jesus into the world. From his opened side a new people, a new way of being human, is born: the Church, that will live with his risen life.

With what mastery John weaves together these three perspectives, these three interpretations of what is happening: the crowd, Pilate, the disciples. The body of Jesus is taken away and buried. For now, the crowd and Pilate are secure in the belief that their interpretation has prevailed. Whether or not they are right will be revealed in the next and final act of this greatest of all dramas.