First of all, I’d like to say a big “thank you” to all who made today’s service so special – From the flower team, the choir and musicians to the Junior Church leaders and coffee makers, as well as the Easter Bunny!
This past week has seen a lot of activity at St Andrew’s and I hope that we will all be able to find time to rest and reflect as we now move into Passiontide.
I have shared my Easter Day sermon below and will be sharing my sermon from Maundy Thursday later in the week. Whilst writing, I am happy to also be able to share Bishop Robert’s Easter message with you, via this link, along with a video from our archives (see below), which I am sure will lift your spirits!
Wishing you all a very happy and blessed Easter,
Revd Jackie Sellin.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
In the grave they laid him, “Love by hatred slain, thinking that never he would wake again, laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen: Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green”*.
Woman, why are you weeping? Mary had come looking for Jesus, and he was not there. She looked in the place where she thought he would be, in the tomb where he had been laid three days earlier. A tomb that had been sealed and was now open, and empty. Only the linen cloths remained. It must have been devastating. Not only had they killed her beloved master, but now they had spirited him away: ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ Everything had gone. How slowly the Passover must have passed for those left behind. How dark and lonely, hopeless they must have felt. And now, to heap insult onto injury, he is not there. Woman, why are you weeping?
The question is asked twice, and I wonder what tone of voice, what inflection is used. Is it one of compassion, of concern? Or one of surprise? Woman, why are you weeping? Why are you looking in the tomb? Why are you looking among the dead for the Lord? As the women are asked in Luke’s version of the resurrection: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” “He is not here”, as Mark writes. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Mary, the women, the disciples, looked for Jesus where they expected him to be, where the last human hands had left him. And yet: they cut him down but he leaps up high, he is the one who will never, never die – as the hymn tells us. The Love by hatred slain, thinking that never he would wake again, is now “Quick from the dead, (and) my risen Lord is seen, Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green”. Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. He is no longer bound by human acts, he is risen indeed. Alleluia. He is not where they laid him, “(because) God raised him on the third day”. He is not where they expect him to be. He is not there.
So, where is Christ on this first Easter morning? Woman, why are you weeping? Mary, distraught, bereft, in shock, turns from where she had expected to find Jesus and finds him beside her: “Rabbouni”. Teacher. In her distress, in her deep sorrow, Jesus finds her, consoles her, rescues her, and then sends her out to help others understand. Again, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus meets his disciples in their darkness and teaches them, leads them gently to the truth. And for the disciples in the upper room, again, Jesus meets them in their need, reveals himself, offers himself, and comforts them. Then finally, commissions and sends them out to tell others, and to “Feed my lambs…. tend my sheep…. feed my sheep” as John’s Gospel tells us. To take up the commandment shown and given to them on Maundy Thursday to love one another as Christ had loved them and put that commandment into action. To see Jesus, see God, in all humanity and respond with the love and compassion shown in the foot washing of Maundy Thursday and in the forgiveness from the cross, understanding “that God shows no partiality” and that “Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all”.
And this is the message we take up today, on this Easter Sunday. That Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Alleluia! He is not in the tomb where humanity tried to contain him, “thinking that never he would walk again”, but has come forth, “quick from the dead, my risen Lord is seen”. And he is seen, here, amongst us, within us. “When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain, his touch can call us back to life again” as he called the disciples, as he called Mary back to life, back to hope and joy. But like the disciples, like Mary, we are also called to walk with him, we too are sent, out into the world to join him: as one of my favourite John Bell hymns says: Jesus Christ is waiting, waiting in the street. Waiting for us to look for him in the unexpected places, to find him there, and to join him. To find him among us and then take him out with us and share the Love that has come again with all people through our acts of Christ-like compassion and love. To show no partiality, to see Christ in all people, everywhere, especially where there is darkness, fear, oppression and prejudice. And to speak God’s peace, God’s power to transform to call people back to life again, life in all its fullness, to speak God’s love to all. Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia, and the world will never be the same again, we will never be the same again. Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green. Like Mary in the garden, we have seen the Lord, and that Lord now sends us out in the power of the Spirit to live and work to God’s praise and glory.
Christ is risen: he is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Amen.
*Hymn, “Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain”. Author: John Macleod Campbell Crum