Life with the stone rolled away - An Easter Day sermon

Acts 10.34a, 37-43 ‘We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.’

Colossians 3:1-4 ‘Seek the things that are above, where Christ is.’;

John 20.1-9 ‘He must rise from the dead.’

 

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We have just heard that Mary Magdalene arrived, that first Easter morning, while it was still dark to find the stone had been taken away from the tomb where Jesus’ dead, lifeless body had been placed.

Something brought her there; quite what it’s not clear other than to be near the body of Jesus.

We come, in the light of day, to this church this morning and we too find no stone blocking the way, but the doors – literal and figurative – open: open to the light and life of the Crucified and Risen Lord.

The tomb is open and empty: Christ, the Lord of life, is not to be found in places of death; he is life; he brings life.

What do you do with that?

You may think you decided to come to church this morning; but in fact, you are responding to a call, the call of the Crucified and Risen Lord.

It may be a call you can’t articulate, but it’s there all the same, calling you on a level you may not know or comprehend.

It’s a call to life.

It’s a call Mary Magdalene heard in her heart, that drew her, through her tears, to the tomb that early morning.

It’s the call that drew Peter and John running to the tomb, not knowing what they’d find there.

You’re here, I’m here - in this place that proclaims life in all its abundance - called by the Author of Life itself.

And there’s another stone that now needs rolling away.

The challenge for us today, responders to the call of Christ, is to embrace that fully, to open the doors of our hearts, to have the stone that holds death within us taken away and let life flood our lives.

What does that look like?

Our second reading helps us: ‘If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.’ (Colossians 3.1)

Rolling the stone away is about elevating your mind above the deathly ways of the world into the life-giving way of Christ.

The experience of the disciples on the first Easter morning was one of perplexity, confusion, bewilderment.

They still hadn’t got it: as the evangelist says, ‘as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.’ (John 20.9)

Be ye sure, coming close to the Crucified and Risen Lord means we can’t see life in the same way again.

Be sure that perplexity gives way to trust in God’s faithfulness.

Peter, who was perplexed on the first Easter Day, comes to proclaim, as we heard in the first reading, that ‘to [Jesus] all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’ (Acts 10.43).

In other words, there’s no need for perplexity: the prophets are witnesses, and, Peter might add, Jesus told you all this in person too!

And the response of faith leads to our forgiveness; the lifting of the millstone of deathly ways from around our necks: it’s ‘the freedom of the glory of the children of God.’ (Romans 8.21)

This is the faith of the Church; this is the Christian faith.

The Resurrection of Christ is the guarantee that all that went before is vindicated - his life anointed ‘with the Holy Spirit and with power’, that ‘he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil’ – even his being put to death on the wood of the cross – all is now vindicated.

This is not just some metaphor of fresh chances, new beginnings or springtime.

If the resurrection is only a metaphor; well, to hell with it. (cf Flannery O’Connor)

If the resurrection is only a metaphor, what a delusion it is.

Make no mistake, Christ is risen from the dead.

As St Paul points out in customary directness in his first letter to the Corinthians:

If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Corinthians 15.14)

I should shut up and you should go home!

He carries on:

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15.17)

How pitiable we would be.

But in fact, says Paul, Christ has been raised from the dead.

We are not now locked in to Adam’s sin, the condition of life that is bound in to deathly ways with a stone rolled across it.

Rather ‘in Christ shall all be made alive’ (1 Corinthians 15.22), that’s when we allow the stone to be rolled away, when we step out into the daylight and ‘walk as children of light’.

The letter to the Ephesians nails it, and what our lives become in Christ:

for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Ephesians 5.8-10)

What brought you here today? The call of light; the call of all that is good and right and true; the very call of resurrection life.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.