Sermon for Easter, 10:30am service

admin | 24 April 2011

Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Who is risen? Jesus Christ is risen. Risen from what? Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Risen to what? Jesus Christ is risen to everlasting life never to die again: “in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” Risen for what? Jesus Christ is risen for us, for our justification, for the purpose of making us right with God, that we may be “alive unto God through Jesus Christ.” We have no life apart from him.

What, then, is the resurrection? The what, first and foremost, is who. Christ is risen. He can only be in us if we are in him. Christ is “the resurrection and the life.” It is what he told us beforehand though we failed to understand. It is what he told us because he who is “the resurrection and the life” is also “the resurrection and the life” for us.

And that is all the joy of this day and, indeed, our abiding joy. We behold the figure of his resurrection and see in it the shape of our own. No faith where there is no resurrection. No Christians where there is no resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. No church where the resurrection is not proclaimed and celebrated. For if he is not risen, then he is not alive and neither are we. If he is not risen, then we, too, shall simply cease to be as if we had never been at all. But “in Christ shall all be made alive.” There can be no holy abiding in him if he is not risen from the dead. And if we do not abide in him, then where shall we dwell? In the tomb? But the tomb is empty. To dwell there is to dwell where there is no meaning and life is not life but death.

But if we cling to our hurts and sorrows, our hatreds and animosities, our pretension and arrogance, our anger and despair; in short, to what Paul calls “the leaven of malice and wickedness,” then we are but the walking dead. We choose death and reject the hope of new life. Let go of it all. Choose life. Choose Christ.

The resurrection bestows a radical dignity upon our lives. It makes life worth living precisely because it opens us out to the infinite life of God as the abiding place of our lives. The tomb is empty because it is no place for Christ or for us. Through the resurrection our life is with Christ. The whole of his life is his being with the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit. His being with us has been always about his going to the Father. Christ is risen to make us partakers of his resurrection through his death and passion.

Everything speaks of resurrection, especially on this day, but what does it mean? What is the resurrection? It is radical new life which changes how we see everything. The resurrection of Christ quite literally and historically put the world on a whole new foundation, the foundation of grace.

The claim of the Church is that Christ actually and really rose from the dead. It is an historic and physical event but one which cannot be known historically or empirically – in other words, it reveals the limits of historical and empirical knowing. There is simply the witness of the empty tomb, the witness of angels and women, the witness of the disciples and the witness of the astounding words of the Risen Christ. We encounter the power of an idea that carries with it its own reality. What we are presented with on this day and throughout the whole of Eastertide is the underlying principle of the whole life of the Church, namely, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The unlooked-for thing, the wholly unexpected and unthinkable thing has happened and is thinkable. But it has to be proclaimed and it has to be taught. It cannot not be thought.

Far more than the counter to the passion, the resurrection is the fruit of the passion. Christ’s resurrection, too, is the greatest affirmation of the doctrine of creation. It reveals the close and necessary connection between creation and redemption. God creates and God redeems his creation. Our humanity and our world belong to God. The end and the purpose of our being is to be found in him, despite ourselves.

God creates and recreates out of love. Easter is the great new creation that happens out of the violent but empty nothingness of our sins and evil. Christ’s resurrection is the strongest possible affirmation of our human individuality and the dignity of our humanity. It teaches us that the body matters. It is not nothing. It is not simply disposable trash. It, too, bears the image of Christ. Easter is the restoration of that image in us. In and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we discover the radical meaning of our humanity. We are nothing without God.

Death and resurrection are the pattern of Christian life and witness. They are signaled constantly in the liturgy. Easter is the great counter to all of the forms of fatalism and determinism in our culture and day. It proclaims our freedom. We are freed from sin and death and we are freed to God. It proclaims the world and our humanity as God’s redeemed creation. This gives us a whole new way of looking at our world and ourselves in our sins and failings. There is forgiveness and new life. That new life is about living for God and for one another. Only so can we begin to discover the real purpose and meaning of our own lives.

We are not entitled to anything. God does not owe us. Creation is itself a gift of God. But the greater gift is the resurrection for it signals the redemption of creation. It opens us out to the greater wonder of the mystery of God and gathers us into that mystery in the truth of our humanity, soul and body. In the face of our fears and anxieties, Christ says “fear not.” In the face of suffering and death, Christ says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” We find the truth of our lives in him, in his abiding love for us and for the Father, the love which has conquered sin and death. The challenge is to live it in faithfulness and service, in repentance and renewal, in prayer and praise.

Christ’s Resurrection is the great celebration of hope and life. It is for us, for you and for me. Live it to the glory of God and to the good of his Church and people! Today is the new day, the day of Resurrection!