[NB the section in square brackets was not preached on the day, but may be worth a read!]
Acts
10:34-43
1
Corinthians 15:1-11
John 20:1-18
+
The first
Easter Day is characterised by disciples being at a grave, by running about
looking for the dead body of Jesus and by meeting the Risen Lord in person,
often without being aware.
It echoes the
spiritual quest: seeking God, not always recognising him and encountering him
even when we are fearful and living life in the shadows.
We can
believe sometimes that God is absent.
God was
famously declared dead by atheists in the nineteenth century, yet he’s been
declared dead before – indeed he was on Good Friday.
But the
proclamation of the Gospel is that by
entering death, facing it unblinkingly, God has the capacity to bring true,
deep and authentic life.
The
Resurrection of Christ says God is alive, vibrant, Creator, giver of all that
is good, the one who sustains our lives and loves us, you and me.
The
Resurrection of Christ says God is more present to us than we are to ourselves.
***
Yet, as we
commemorated on Good Friday, Christ has died. His body was placed in the ground.
His blessed
Mother, Mary, knew this.
She had seen
the dead body of her Son removed from the cross and - echoing the time she
nursed him at her breast - has him on her lap, but now wiping dried blood, sweat
and dust from his cold brow.
The women
with Mary knew.
They had
been there when his body was placed in the tomb, and they were ready to come
back to wash and anoint him.
Yet when
Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb, early on the first day of the week, she
found it empty: ‘they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know
where they have laid him’ (John 20.2b)
[Who is
‘they’? Did Mary Magdalene suspect that Pontius Pilate or the Jewish authorities
had taken Christ’s body?
That’s what tyrants
do. Still. Today.
A
contemporary tyrant did this just last month.
Even though
he had died, Alexei Navalny’s body was not released to his family.
What
possible power could his dead body have now? But power it had and tyrants want
to control even dead bodies.
It’s the
worst distortion of the legal principle of Habeas
Corpus, ‘you have the body’, which means no one can unlawfully take your living body from you, and imprison you
falsely.
But tyrants
will even take a dead body because they know a dead body can inspire as much as
a living one: and that’s what Mary Magdalene suspected.
Receiving
the body of a loved one who has died, knowing that their body rests is so
important to us.
That’s true
for the Navalny family and for those people in Hull recently who discovered
that some undertakers had not been putting the right bodies in the right
coffins: it was intensely distressing.
To have the
body of a dead person and bury it with dignity is so important to us.
I know that
pastorally when I take funerals, prepare the dying for their death and,
something we all should do, seek to comfort the bereaved.
And that’s
why Mary Magdalene was at the tomb that first Easter morning, to be in the
presence of Christ’s body.
But in the
case of Jesus, his body was not spirited away, or snatched, or fraudulently
swapped: something more radical, startling and breathtaking has happened.
It’s true
though: Jesus’ tomb is empty; his body is not there.]
Mary
Magdalene, Peter and the Beloved Disciple descend into confusion, because at
that point, as John tells us, ‘they had failed to understand the teaching of
scripture, that he must rise from the dead’. (John 20.9)
Easter
speaks of the power of God to raise even a dead body to life.
God, the
Giver of Life, desires creation to be fulfilled and human lives completed by
union with him fully alive: the scriptures are absolutely consistent about
that.
Christ’s
resurrection it takes us deep into (1) the mystery of life and death, (2) our
destiny in the life of the world to come and (3) abundance of life here and
now: today.
Life. Life.
Life.
St Irenaeus
of Lyons, who lived in the second century AD, writes ‘Gloria enim Dei vivens
homo’, ‘the glory of God is humanity alive’ (Adversus haereses, IV, 20, 7).
This is what
the Resurrection of the Lord makes possible for you and for me, when we are
drawn into life of his Risen and Glorified Body, the Church.
The world
needs us to be this.
Western
society is at sixes and sevens about the human body.
Body image,
both negative and narcissistic, is a source of pain to many; the relation of
the body and personal identity is an anguish and agony for those for whom it is
unresolved; assisted dying says that some bodies are dispensable before their
natural end, and society has largely accepted that the unborn human body is
too.
The Bodily Resurrection of Christ, and that
he shared our human experience by his Incarnation, is ultimately why Christians
have always cherished the human body, even, or especially, the weakest and most vulnerable.
The call is
not to discard bodies but to see them fulfilled, loved and flourishing.
Life, in Christ’s
resurrected and glorified body, is the destiny we hope for and long to share
in, so that our mortal bodies are renewed and transformed, as St Paul puts it, and
mirror Christ’s glorious body.
An ancient
heresy suggests that human beings are essentially either body or soul, or that body
and soul war together within us.
It’s known
as dualism, i.e. two parts, not one whole: Christianity rejects that account of
being human - we are body and soul together.
A spirit
without a soul is an angel; a soul without a body is a ghost: neither are
human.
The
Crucified and Risen Lord is not an angel and he is not a ghost because his body
is resurrected.
The
resurrected body of Christ unites the physical and spiritual: he eats and
drinks; but he cannot be held onto; he defies space and time and yet Thomas can
touch his wounds.
Jesus Christ
is not immediately recognisable, even to his closest followers, and yet acts in
a thoroughly recognisable way.
Across the
Gospels disciples were fearful, weeping, incredulous when they met the
Crucified and Risen Lord, but always propelled to faith.
Fears;
tears; incredulity, faith: that instinct is right.
May I be
frank?
The implications
of the Resurrection should make us tremble with a holy fear; weep for our sin;
realise that God ways are higher than our ways, for then we move to faith
when we ask: ‘am I ready to embrace the Risen Lord? Can I hold onto him? Can I
receive his Body? Can I live out his risen life, so people may see in my body
the marks of love?
If the
answer is a ‘yes’ then we are receiving the Resurrection faith and our lives,
like those of the first witnesses, can never be the same again.
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