16-04-06 - Easter Sunday


God is infuriating. Because God insists on having the last word.

 

But what is even more infuriating is that God doesn't seem to mind if nobody hears the last word he speaks.

 

And so God's last word on Holy week wasn't spoken where it could be heard by the powerful people, like Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas. It wasn't spoken where it could be heard by the compromised people like Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night but who sat on his hands one night when a vote was being taken whether to sentence Jesus to death. God's word wasn't spoken where Judas could hear it, for he had already found he couldn't live with what he had done and so had hidden in the silence of his own eternity.

 

God's last word was spoken in the dawn silence of yesterday's grave.

 

God is infuriating.

 

If you're able to make Easter happen, why not make it happen where people would sit up and taken notice.

 

It's the theme of countless stories: how the hero is captured, or wounded, or lost and the world where he is needed is treated badly until, in the fullness of time he escapes and appears again ready to claim the allegiance of the few people who had remained loyal to him. Think of Richard the Lionheart – or at least the story about him – captured in the crusades and imprisoned and while he is out of the country wicked King john runs badly and selfishly with the help of selfish nobles – until Richard is discovered imprisoned and helped to escape and comes back and claims his kingdom and face down those who had usurped it.

 

Why didn't God do something like that, and have Jesus appear to Pilate in the Governor's mansion, to to Caiaphas in the temple: and force them to recognise just how wrong they had been.

 

But Easter isn't about humiliating the hostile.

 

Or why didn't God arrange Easter so that the crowds who had so warmly welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday but had deserted him within a few days were confronted with the Jesus they gradually realised they had doubts about. Maybe it was all this talk about the last being first and the first last which didn't exactly sound like the political leader they had imagined Jesus to be. Maybe it was his refusal to have anything to do with armed force which didn't really square with how they thought the Romans would be driven from the land. Maybe it was the scheming church establishment questioning whether it was right to turn upside down the way things had always been done – whatever it was, the doubts were sown, and once doubts are sown they start to grow.

 

A couple of weeks ago a letter appeared in the Herald newspaper's advise section. Parents asking advice about their son. Here's what it said> “Our eighteen year old son came back from university last week, and announced that God didn't exist. Apparently this is what they teach in some of hisd philosophy classes. We are Christians. Not only does he refuse to come to pray with us now, he argues furiously that we shouldn't go either. We are at breaking point. What should we do?”

 

Its an age old problem. When Paul went to the very heart of ancient Greek philosophy in the city of Athens, and preached in front of the Areopagus, the book of Acts records that “when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said' we will hear you again about this'”

 

Why didn't arrange God for Easter to happen in such a way that the doubts people have always had was removed and they were confronted face to face with the reality of the risen Christ?

 

But Easter isn't about dazzling the doubters.

 

And no doubt there are those who will think that it might have been very different if God had been prepared to humiliate the hostile and win the world through sheer force of his power, crushing enemies under his feet and destroying all opposition. But what then would have become of the faith that Jesus had said was all about meekness, not power inheriting the earth?

 

And no doubt there are those whom will think that it might have been very different if God had been prepared to dazzle the doubters through the sheer force of some argument-stopping proof that would have satisfied the sort of certainty that would have put an end to scepticism and doubt for good. But what then would have become of the faith that Jesus had said just needed to be the size of a mustard seed to undermine the search for certainty?

 

So in the dawn silence of yesterday's grave, God's last, quiet word is spoken.

 

Because Easter is about building up the believers.

 

Can we think for a moment about two of the stories which they started to tell about the first Easter Day?

 

The first is the lovely story of Mary Magdalene, wandering in the garden near the empty tomb, distraught because she thinks that someone has stolen Jesus' body.

 

Mary Magdalene. Every so often there are silly books written or silly films made which make all sorts of fanciful claims that Mary Magdalene must have become Jesus' lover or wife – there isn't a shred of evidence. So lets stay with the evidence we have about Mary. There's a story that she was a prostitute but there isn't any evidence for that either. What we do know is that Mary came from the small village in Galilee called Migdal, and the Gospels tell us that she had been possessed by seven demons. Seven – the perfect number.

 

Sometimes people become so depressed or so unhappy or so mentally ill that we say they are not themselves. That was Mary from Migdal. And Jesus restored Mary to herself and she became one of his most loyal followers, one of his closest disciples.

 

If you have ever been there, or seen someone you know or love there, you'll know just how dark it is when you are no longer yourself. And how liberating it is to be helped to recover so that people can say, and you know it's true: thank God you've got your old self back again.

 

Can you imagine what it must be like for Mary, who had been given her old self back, to stand there at the cross on Good Friday and find the one who had restored her to life being taken away; and the it's like the darkness has come back again. People whose sadness or depression has been triggered once are terrified it will happen again. And here is Mary at the cross, frightened she's going to lose not only Jesus but herself again.

 

But she can't abandon him. So she stays. And then, to make things worse she discovers that even the last thing she wanted to do for Jesus, to sweeten his body, is denied her too. “Do something” they say to the person whose personality is in danger of disintegrating, “do something to face the demons squarely”.

 

But even this is denied her.

 

“Sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where to and I'll take him away” she says.

 

And a voice says “Mary”.

 

You have had to have been there in the darkness in order to recognise that voice. You only realise who it is because you've heard the voice before.

 

You only realise on Easter morning that resurrection is possible because, like Mary, you have known resurrection before.

 

Easter is about building up the believers.

 

According to John's Gospel that happened very early in the morning. Now move the clock forward to the evening.

 

I've been reading a book called Approaching Easter. It was written by Jane Williams, the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury and this is how she describes that first Easter evening.

 

“Just after Jesus' death, when rumours about his resurrection are beginning to circulate, two of his followers are walking along a road, talking about everything that has been happening. Another traveller catches up with them while they walk, and soon they are telling him all about it too. To their amazement he seems to think that they should have expected it all, both the death and the resurrection of their leader. He starts quoting Scripture to them, all the texts that, suddenly, click into place. The two disciples can't bear to let him go. They just have to hear more, and they pretty well force the stranger to stay the night with them and continue the discussion over dinner. But as they sit down, the man takes bread and breaks it, ready to share, and suddenly they recognise Jesus”.

 

Very different from Mary's early morning encounter. But the point is the same. If they hadn't been there with him so often before, when he broke bread, and in particular if they hadn't been with Jesus that night – was it really only three nights ago that they were in the Upper room and he talked to them about this bread being his body broken. And just for a moment they had grasped what Jesus was all about; just for a moment they saw it all clearly; just for a moment they knew that this was the only truth about God that they needed to know…..and then the darkness engulfed them and they lost sight of that moment in all the bleakness that followed…..and here he was, doing the same thing again.

 

And you only recognise it is Jesus because you have been with him before. You only recognise it is the risen Christ because he repeats what he has done with you and for you before. You only recognise him in the joy of the Emmaus dining room because you have been with him in the pain of the Jerusalem upper room.

 

Easter is about building up the believers.

 

Almost the last sentences in Jane William's book were written not by her but by Harry Williams, the Cambridge teacher who became a monkl and whom I told you about the Sunday after he died, just as we were about to go into the season of Lent.

 

These words: “If we have been aware of resurrection in this life, then, and only then, shall we be able or ready to receive the hopes of the final resurrection after physical death. Resurrection as our final and ultimate future can be known only by those who perceive resurrection with us now, encompassing all we are and do. For only then will it be recognised as a country we have already entered and in whose light and warmth we have already lived.”

 

Amen to that.