April 24, 2011 - Easter Day, Year A (RCL)
Imagine
a huge dome
arching up towards the sky,
and down in the center of it, freestanding,
a stone chapel, elaborately carved,
hung with row upon row of golden oil lamps,
and flanked with paschal candles.
A small door,
and inside two rooms.
One holds
a fragment of stone;
the other,
is lined with marble.
This is the place, they say
where it happened,
where early on that first Easter morning
the angel appeared
and the stone rolled back
and Jesus Christ
rose from the dead.
Thousands of people come here each day
to see this place.
Some are the faithful, certain
of the reality of the resurrection
that we celebrate each Easter.
others
are not so sure.
They come hoping
that something here
will convince them,
that these stones
carry some residue of that first Easter morning
almost two thousand
years
ago,
and that that residue
will lodge itself in their hearts
and be the proof they have been searching for.
Just over two months ago,
I had the privilege of visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with our bishop and other clergy.
We had followed the path that Jesus walked
from the garden of Gethsemane, to his trial, and on to the site of his crucifixion,
and finally to the place
of his resurrection.
I’m not sure what I expected to find there.
I knew it was a church, shared and fought over
by a number of denominations,
and that’s what it is, a big church, with countless chapels and altars.
But what I didn’t quite expect
was all the people. They were everywhere,
kneeling and praying
and pushing and jostling
and in lines and processing
and singing and talking
and like I was,
taking photos.
It was almost impossible to even see some of the holy sites, there were so many people.
The line for the tomb snaked around for an hour,
and I have to admit
that I finally gave up, and sneaked round the back,
where there is a Coptic Orthodox altar
and a tiny patch of the same bedrock
that extends under the more popular tomb.
And I also have to admit
that I was kind of disappointed.
I had no wonderful revelation.
Even being there, where it all happened
didn’t give me the sort of proof that I want
to be able to display when people ask me about how I know that the resurrection
really did
happen.
That is, until I looked around again.
And realized that there was the proof.
Not in the beautiful buildings
or even the holy sites
but in the people.
When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb
that first Easter morning,
they were expecting to say
a last goodbye
to their beloved friend.
And then to go home, and mourn
and then go back to life as it had been
before they met him.
Instead, there was an earthquake, and a flash of light, and an empty tomb, and guards lying unconscious beside a the stone that had sealed the tomb,
and strangest of all, and angel perched on top of the stone.
And the angel spoke,
and told them not to be afraid,
that Jesus who they had come to farewell
was not there, but had risen.
And as they rushed off
to tell the disciples
they ran into a man, almost knocked him over.
And it was Jesus, the one who they’d been looking for.
But he didn’t let them stay with him;
instead he sent them
to tell the disciples to expect him.
If it had all been about proof,
the Marys would have been sent
to bring the officials,
to make sure everything was documented.
They would have grabbed a piece of the empty shroud
or perhaps chipped off
a piece of the stone that had been rolled away.
And set up a shrine there,
a physical reminder
of the miracle they had witnessed.
Surely that would have been what Jesus wanted.
That way, no one could ever doubt
that it really had happened,
that he had been raised
from the dead.
But it wasn’t proof
that Jesus was focussed on.
Not that sort of proof, anyway.
The women knelt at his feet,
and he reached out his hand and helped them up
just as he had done
so many times before.
And sent them
to tell the disciples.
they were to be messengers,
passing on the good news from person to person,
inviting them to join Christ
in his
resurrection.
Messengers, not curators,
guarding
the Museum of the Resurrection.
Because if the whole point of the resurrection
were just that Jesus had come back to life
at this particular time, in this particular place,
then then it would be news, yes, in the short term,
but then it would become
just another footnote
to history.
But the point of the resurrection
was that Jesus is risen
and so are we
with him.
For close on two thousand years
the two Marys
and the disciples
and countless of Jesus’ followers after them
have shared the good news
of resurrection
to hundreds, thousands, millions
of people,
inviting them
to put their trust in Jesus Christ
and receive the life he brings.
And it’s not just a promise of new life
after we die.
it’s a promise
of new life now.
Remember our second reading.
“So, if you have been raised with Christ...”
If you have been raised?
That sounds crazy. the very fact that we’re reading this
means that
we’re not dead. So how can we
have been raised
with Christ?
Well, if you go back a few verses in the letter to the Colossians,
back to the previous chapter
you read this.
“When you were buried with [Christ] in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.”
Resurrection isn’t a consequence of death;
resurrection
is a consequence of baptism.
All of us who are baptized into Christ's body
are already resurrected with him.
Now, even before
we die.
And of course, what that means
is that resurrection isn’t just something that we wait for,
some indefinable time in the future;
resurrection is something we experience now,
or at least, a taste of it.
And that’s the point of Colossians.
“So if you have been raised with Christ”
or perhaps a better translation would be,
“so, because you have been raised with Christ,
set you minds on the things that are above,
that is, the things to do with God.”
In other words,
live your life
in a way that pleases God. Ask the question, ask it time and time again, “What would Jesus do?”
We act differently
because of the new life we have in Christ.
We are resurrected
and it makes a difference
now.
But being resurrected
means more than just
that we should act differently.
It means that we are different.
Because we are resurrected
our lives are hidden with Christ in God.
In Christ, we’ve been caught up
into the very presence of God.
We don’t have to go hunt for God,
we don’t have to go hunt in Jerusalem, or Rome,
or anywhere else.
Because one of the amazing things about being Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, baptized in his name
is that we live, permanently
in the presence of God.
God is with us, and we are with God.
Sometimes
we can feel it
other times we can’t so much,
but it’s an objective reality. We are, through the grace of God,
and the power of the Holy Spirit,
with Christ,
and with Christ, in God.
Nothing we do
can change that, nothing we do
and nothing anyone else does.
And that makes a difference, it makes a difference
to how we live.
We don’t have to fear
that we will be abandoned;
we don’t have to fear
that we will ever have
to go it alone.
We have been raised with Christ,
and we live, now, in his presence.
And that’s the real proof of the resurrection.
Not a dusty stone
or stained cloth, but the witness of people of faith,
people of the resurrection.
The proof is all around us.
In Jerusalem,
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
and here in this church,
we
who have been baptized,
we
who are resurrected.
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010