by CCW | 15 May 2011 17:14
Eastertide is the season of joy. The joy, of course, is not just for a season but actually underlies the true nature of our spiritual pilgrimage for the entire year and for the whole of our life. The joy is the joy of the resurrection. Every Sunday, in the Christian understanding of things, is a celebration of the resurrection. In some sense, Christians should not so much be “surprised by joy” as defined by joy.
The joy of the resurrection is not simply or primarily something emotional and psychological, a state of feeling or euphoria. It is something inward and spiritual. It has to do with our understanding of Christ’s death and resurrection. It is something that has to be taught in order to be felt, we might say. There is the constant necessity of being reminded, time and time again, about the victory of Christ over sin and death. The resurrection is the radical triumph of Christ over the very things that make human life tragic and meaningless. We have to think it and live its triumph.
The joy of the resurrection does not eclipse the realities of human suffering and death. Neither does it deny the realities of good and evil. Quite the contrary. The resurrection is about facing those realities and seeing them in a new light of understanding. That new light of understanding is our life with Christ and in Christ lived out in his body, the Church. It means that we look on sin and suffering and death differently. We are no longer to see them as ultimately defining and defeating. “Death be not proud,” as the poet, John Donne, puts it, because death no longer has anything to be puffed up about; indeed, “Death, thou shalt die.” Death has been changed by virtue of the resurrection.
What does this mean? Well, central to the Christian religion is the idea of redemptive suffering. What does that mean? It means that God creates something good out of the miseries of our sins and follies, out of the sadness of our sorrows and sufferings. Such is the Cross. But haven’t we gotten beyond the grim sadness and bitter meanness of Good Friday? Isn’t everything all happy-clappy and feel-good, feel-really, really-good? No.
The accounts of the resurrection are entirely a testimony to the realities of human sin and suffering and death. The marks of the crucifixion are an especially important feature of the teaching of Christ about his resurrection. “See my hands and my side,” he says, “a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have.” What does this mean? Simply, that the body is part and parcel of our human identity; part and parcel of who we are, most importantly, in the sight of God. In the Risen Christ, we glimpse something of what we shall be.
This is a powerful concept because it changes how we see things now and how we act. Or at least it should. It makes the absolutely astounding claim that we do not need to be defined by all of the circumstances and accidents of our life and our experiences. In other words, we are more than just accidents waiting to happen.
The joy of the resurrection overrides the accidental and circumstantial events in our lives. Human suffering and death have been embraced in the arms of Christ crucified. They have become a means unto an end. Our end is with God. Christ’s resurrection is a testament to that truth and reality.
We live from his joy in the life of the Church through the Word proclaimed and the Sacraments celebrated. There are our sorrows, to be sure, but they serve to deepen our joys even as our joys heighten our sense of suffering and impel us to compassion and care.
The sixteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel provides the Gospel readings for the last three Sundays in Eastertide. It comprises what is sometimes called the “farewell discourse” of Jesus. He is telling the disciples that he is going from them and that this is a good thing. His going from them is about his death and resurrection. Sorrow and joy stand in a dialectical relation; both are keenly and intensely felt but even more they are keenly and intensely felt in each other; the sorrow in the joy and the joy in the sorrow. This is the great and wonderful paradox of our Christian faith. This, too, is the great message of the Church in our world and day.
Without this, it seems to me, we are captive to a bleak fatalism and determinism, on the one hand, and to a deadly narcissism and nihilism, on the other hand. The counter to both is the resurrection. It may be that for one reason or another, we “now therefore have sorrow.” But Jesus goes on to say, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” The joy of the resurrection is a deep and abiding joy in and through the hardships and sufferings as well as the follies and wickednesses of ourselves and our world. But our joy is in Christ.
Something of the deeper meaning of this deep and abiding joy is captured in the recurring refrain of the Easter Season, indeed, a recurring refrain that illumines so much of the Christian pilgrimage of faith; “because I go to the Father.” The whole story of Christ is distilled into that phrase. Our lives of spiritual pilgrimage, lived out in the communities and cultures where we are placed, are about our participation in that heavenly orientation. It is the defining reality of the life of the Son and, through his death and resurrection, it becomes the defining feature of our lives in faith. We live not for ourselves but for God and for others. The Son has embraced us in his love for the Father. In that love we find a joy that no one can take from us.
Fr. David Curry
Easter III, 2011
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2011/05/15/sermon-for-the-third-sunday-after-easter-2/
Copyright ©2026 Christ Church unless otherwise noted.