He IS risen, you know........................

A sermon I preached at the old St.Peter’s church, Brighton on EASTER SUNDAY 1997, just after becoming a priest. (The cartoon was not included!)

On this particular day of the year,the most unlikely people go around giving their children little fluffy yellow chicks and egg-shaped chocolate confections - you never know,we might even have some here for those who are young in stomach - and they say “Happy Easter” . Or,if you are a bit more ‘churchy’,you might say “Alleluia,He is risen” instead.

What does it mean? Why are we so excited? How can we respectably believe that all those years ago an unofficial Jewish Rabbi called Jesus was resurrected? Surely everybody knows that once you’re dead, you’re dead.

There are many who would laugh at us these days,just as the sophisticated Athenians laughed at St.Paul when he brought them the good news while it was still hot off the press.

But it was Paul himself who went for broke: “If Christ be not risen” he said, “then our preaching [his and mine,I suppose] is in vain and your faith is in vain.”  In other words we really would be kidding ourselves, as Spike Milligan once unkindly said of the inscription on a tombstone which read “Not dead,just sleeping”.

But,you know, Paul is right in gambling that the Christian faith stands or falls by the truth of the resurrection

 It would have been a lot safer to leave out the supernatural bit and concentrate on ,say, what a wise moral teacher Christ was or what a man of integrity He was but,oh dear,that would be a very dull substitute. We would just have to admire Him from an increasing distance of time and respect His memory like that of any other wise guru of the dim past. You wouldn’t get many converts queueing to join the archaic and dusty Jesus Christ historical appreciation society.

No,I’m with Paul. The resurrection may be difficult to come to terms with but it is exciting! It means that there is something more to existence than the world as we know it.

The claim that Christ is risen suggests a new creation,the splicing of eternity on to time,a bold promise that life is not,after all,futile, not pointless,not nasty,brutish and short,not “Is that all there is to it?”

Life becomes instead only the first stage of a wondrous journey,full of purpose and hope shining through the pain and the setbacks.

Sounds good,doesn’t it? Too good to be true?

Well,if you want scientific proof of the precise means by which Christ was bodily resurrected, you ain’t gonna get it.

On the other hand,if you’re interested in circumstantial evidence, that you certainly CAN have.

Remember that the disciples had deserted him in his hour of passion and fled in dismay at the apparent disaster of the crucifixion. BUT THEN SUDDENLY THEY ARE BACK TOGETHER AGAIN,BRIMMING WITH CONFIDENCE AND BURSTING TO START A CHURCH WHICH SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE,SWALLOWED UP ITS PERSECUTOR THE MIGHTY ROMAN EMPIRE AND HAS GONE ON GROWING WORLDWIDE EVER SINCE.

What caused such a dramatic turnaround? Simply this.

They became convinced of his resurrection because,contrary to their expectations - no question of self-deluding wish-fulfilment here - he showed himself to them.

Impressive?  Yes,I would certainly think so,even by the standards of a human court.

But,you know, the rolled away stone, the empty tomb, the disciples’ volte-face - these are rather the stuff of the debating chamber: “This house declares that,on a balance of probabilities,the evidence suggests that Christ may reasonably be said to have risen from the dead.”

Well, okay, so what? 

Only this!  That,if it’s true,if it’s true,then what God did  very early on that first day of the week  was to change the whole course and meaning of human life and history.

But we’ll never get caught up in the thrill of that by arguing the toss about the stone or the tomb or the disciples’ inconsistent behaviour.

We are moving,like it or not, into the realm of the grace of faith.

“Oh yeah?” I can hear the ancient Athenians and modern humanists and atheists and agnostics begin to switch off. But I’m not going to try to keep them half-interested by any weasly, liberal cop-out about a symbolic or metaphorical resurrection.

 With my rather more distinguished fellow preacher St.Paul, I stand with no shame or apology by my faith that the risen Christ’s life today proves itself to us in our hearts if we only open them to receive and feel God’s love. You could almost say that faith in God and in his resurrection of Jesus is self-fulfilling in the best possible sense - not an intellectual swizz but a dawning awareness that God’s love is so fierce and so generous that He must have done this incredible thing. In other words, we have to put the cart before the horse. ”O taste and see how  gracious the Lord is..........”.Then you will understand,and believe.

Anybody would be foolish to dismiss the historical evidence for Christ’s resurrection. But nobody can feel the thrill of its SIGNIFICANCE ,the “death of death”,until he or she surrenders to the love of God. Then it comes home to us that we are on the same journey to the same destination as Jesus Christ. It’s just that our progress is much slower.

You see, when we melt in the will of God to be re-fashioned,we will feel the pain of fire,says St.Paul,because we are so attached to our precious selves, we are so fearful of the God who has to kill to make alive. But in Christ’s own case,the death of self had already been achieved; he had long since offered up everything to the Father.

In him we see the logic of God’s love at its purest: the killing had all been done,the making alive again could therefore follow the burial in the twinkling of an eye.

My brothers and sisters,all you have to do is surrender to the love of God. Then you see that the resurrection is not only true; it is no longer surprising; it makes perfect sense. Christ’s journey of loving obedience could not have ended in any other way. And it will be the same for us. We too,if we do but surrender to the love of God,shall be raised to new life.

How could it be otherwise with a  God like the father of the prodigal son who,while he was yet far off,saw the boy and ran to him and embraced him and forgave him before he had even asked for forgiveness.  

How could it be otherwise with a God whose love flows in like the tide to flood every nook and cranny that opens?  Repent,and in a moment that love will swamp your heart,flood you and carry you off through life, through death to heaven.

Alleluia,He is risen.  Happy Easter!