Sermon for Easter, 8:00am Holy Communion

admin | 27 March 2016

“One thing is needful”

Christ is risen. Alleluia, Alleluia! The one thing needful is the proclamation of the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, “early when it was yet dark,” John tells us. She “seeth the stone taken away.” And so it begins. She runs to tell the others, apostle apostolorum, an apostle to the apostles, as the Fathers put it. She says “to Simon Peter and to the other disciple” that “they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.” He is not there. Who has taken him? Who are ‘they’ that “have taken [him] away”? Confronting something that counters her expectation, she suspects a conspiracy, it seems. Don’t we all? Simon Peter and “that other disciple” run and see. They, too, find only an empty tomb. And so it continues. It is the Resurrection. An intriguing and perhaps interesting idea?

Perhaps we feel the same way that the British travel writer, Alexander Kinglake, felt about seeing churches in England and wanting to inscribe upon their lintels the caveat, “interesting, if true.” Is that where we are with the Resurrection, “interesting, if true”?

If so, why are we here? Because the idea of the Resurrection has a strong hold on us, the hold of truth. It has changed the world, quite literally, one would have to say, and that, at least, is true historically speaking from the standpoint of social, political and cultural developments. The rise and spread of Christianity, its struggles and contests, first, with Jewish and ancient pagan culture, Greek and Roman, then, its conflicts and disputes with Islam, as well as its internal debates and arguments between east and west, Greek and Latin, Catholic and Protestant, and, then, with the rise of modernity and even modern science with all of its ambiguities and uncertainties that comprise our post-modern experience; how could one possibly think to explain any of that story apart from the Resurrection? It is the central defining truth of the Christian Faith, whether one believes it or not. That much can and must be said and cannot be gainsaid whether you are Muslim, Jewish, Christian or atheist in terms of our cultural history. We are here because we cannot not think it, even if our world and culture has forgotten and rejected it.

Renewal and rebirth are not new ideas. They are as old as the spring itself and a feature of the natural world in its varied cycles and patterns. After the bleak grim winter, we welcome the signs of spring. To feel the strength of the sun and the warmth of its rays buoys our spirits. That cannot be denied. But the Resurrection is not merely nature’s annual rebirth from the dark tombs of the winter. The Resurrection is something far more radical. It is radical new life and it changes everything.

The power and the truth of the Resurrection lies in God’s intimate engagement with our humanity and our world. The Resurrection is about hope and redemption, about transformation and change for the better. It bestows an incredible dignity upon our humanity and our world that challenges the despairing dogmatisms of our fearful age and day. It is the radical affirmation of life in the face of the culture of death.

The Resurrection is the strongest possible affirmation of human individuality and human dignity. It proclaims, for instance, that the body matters. While it cannot be everything, it cannot be nothing either. It, too, is part of who we are even as the physical world, too, is part of reality. Spirit embraces and redeems the physical and cannot be reduced to it.

The Resurrection is radical new life because it goes to the root of the matter. The root of the matter is our life with God. And so it changes everything. Death changes from being the literal dead end of existence to becoming the way of life to and with God; body and soul are made adequate to each other. Death has been swallowed up into life. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the radical good news that not only gives us the hope of the resurrection for ourselves but it changes us now. We live in the power of the life of the Resurrection. It is the life of the Church in Word and Sacrament.

We are given to proclaim the Resurrection. To proclaim it means to think its radical meaning and truth. It is, quite simply, an idea that carries with it its own truth and reality. Christ is true to his word and he is the living word; we can only truly live in him. It is the business of the Church to proclaim this and to make it known. How? By attending to the stories of the Resurrection in the Gospels which show us how the disciples come to believe and to understand.

What does the Resurrection mean? That we shall be like Christ; that he lives in us and we in him. Should we ever want anything more than that? Even atheist moralists will, perhaps grudgingly, admit that Christ is an example to follow in terms of justice and compassion. Yet, we proclaim something more than a role model and an example, something more than a charismatic guru offering utopian illusions and feel-good hashtags and nostrums. We proclaim the living Christ, risen from the dead, whose Resurrection changes everything and whose life is given for us so that his life may live in us. To think and live this is, as Jesus says to Mary in Bethany, “the one thing needful”.