A sermon for Easter Sunday 2022 based on Luke 24. 1-12. We’re in the wake of Good Friday, the brutality, the horror of what has occurred. Some of the disciples are in hiding, deep in mourning, overcome with grief, terrified that a similar fate awaits them. Some others are on the road back home to Emmaus, disheartened and disillusioned. It seems like the darkness has won, that it has snuffed out the light. They do not understand yet what has happened. They do not understand that Jesus has borne the sins of humanity, that he has taken our punishment and plunged all our wickedness and rebellion down into the hell it deserves. They don’t understand that they now have access to the Father. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. Even if they did understand all of that Jesus is still dead. Death has still overtaken life, hatred and disconnection overtaken love. If all we have is Good Friday, we may have been forgiven but the guilt remains, for now we have the blood of God on our hands. There’s an emptiness to the victory, the battle is won but at what cost. Even if we truly understand what has happened on Friday, it still rings hollow without Sunday. Where is the assurance that we really are forgiven, he has sacrificed himself, but how do we know it has worked, that his sacrifice was acceptable in our place. Imagine you and your siblings, except for one, are playing outside, and sneak off to town to buy rockets and start setting them off in your garden. Your parents rush outside rightly furious for the danger you’re putting yourself and others in. But as they are about to send you all to your room, that other sibling comes out, who has been doing their homework the whole time, and offers to go to his room for you. Your parents accept the switch, and remind you that whilst you are in trouble, your brother will go to his room instead. And so he does, but whilst he’s still in his room there’s no assurance that you’ve been forgiven yet, the judgement still hangs over you. Your brother is taking the punishment for you but all does not yet feel like it has been made right. In the midst of the fear, the shock, the grief of the disciples, some of the women who have been following Jesus leave and, at the crack of dawn, go to the tomb to complete the burial rituals which had been cut short by the sabbath. But as they arrive they discover the tomb has been opened and Jesus’ body is missing. But they don’t suddenly believe that Jesus is alive again, that would be a bizarre deduction from an empty tomb. Instead they are thrown deeper into shock, grief and perhaps despair. And it becomes more shocking as two men in dazzling white appear before them, they’re terrified as these angelic figures appear. And the two men deliver unbelievable news, he’s not dead, he’s alive. Why are you looking for him amidst the tombs, the living don’t dwell there, and Jesus is living. He’s alive. In fact if you read on he’s walking the road towards those two discouraged and unwitting disciples on the road to Emmaus. And then these angelic men deliver a gentle rebuke to the women, Jesus did tell you this would happen, he did tell you he would rise, remember. And the women believe, they hear the words of the angels, and remember the words of Jesus and they believe, faith sparks in their souls. And so they rush off to tell the eleven what has happened. And the men don’t believe a word of it, it sounds like nonsense. In all honesty if someone came to you and told you your recently executed friend had come back to life you’d be doubtful too, and we’ll think more about doubt next Sunday. But it seems like nonsense. Only Peter has his curiosity peaked and goes to the tomb to see what has happened, but he goes and see’s and goes away wondering what has happened. Not belief, not faith, just confusion for Peter. And that’s where Luke’s passage leaves us. Jesus hasn’t shown up, he will shortly, but not yet. And the women believe but the men don’t. But whether they believe or not, the world has changed, utterly transformed. For the victory of the cross wasn’t the last word. Jesus is alive, as Paul puts it this morning, the first fruits of those who are risen. That first Easter dawn marked the beginnings of a new world. If the story ends on Friday, we may be right with God, but our hope is only for this life, we will still die and be lost, we may walk with God in this life, but once it’s over that’s it. Much like the Sadducees (a Jewish religious group) of Jesus’ day believed. And if the story ends on Friday, we are most to be pitied says Paul. It’s futile, what would be the point. The debt is paid, but we’ll still die. Better carry on as normal. But knowing that Friday is not the end, and that on this day Christ is raised from the dead it all changes. The resurrection is the seal on the work of Good Friday, as the Father raises the Son to life it’s the proof that his sacrifice was accepted, that our debt truly is paid. The Son, our brother leaves his room. The death of Jesus is enough; enough to atone for sin, enough to bring us back to God, enough to present us holy and blameless in God’s presence. Romans 4.25 says Jesus ‘was delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification’. Friday and Sunday are linked, two halves of the same action. Our trespasses are forgiven on Friday, and we are justified on Sunday. And as he raises Jesus a new paradigm begins, where death doesn’t have the last word. All who place their faith, their hope in Jesus, who are united to him in his suffering and death now share in his new life. Our hope isn’t just for some future life, here and now we share in Jesus’ new life. We were buried in the waters of baptism and now live his risen life. We died on the cross with Jesus, with our sins and rebellion. And now we are alive in him. Our new life is now, justified, guiltless, free. Now in all our darkness, we know that the darkness will not have the last word, for Jesus has plumbed its depths, he has already been there, and his light shines in the midst of it. His light still shines in the darkness, for the darkness has not overcome it. And more than that. The new life we now live is a life without end. Christ is the first fruits of those risen from the dead says Paul. That means he’s the first of a great harvest, like the first ear of corn plucked from the field. When our time in this world is over we will be raised with him in the fullness of the resurrection, a great, glorious and bountiful harvest. Our frail and lowly bodies conformed to his glorious body. Made perfect, whole and new. All the dirt and damage of this world and life healed. All that is wrong made right. That first Easter dawn signalled that the old order of things, the way things are right now, are living on borrowed time. All dominion and authority and power, all that holds us captive, will be destroyed. Until at last that final enemy, death, is also swallowed up in Christ’s victory. That first Easter morning was filled with despair and hope, fear and assurance, the shock of Friday and the joy of Sunday, the terrible cost and the wonderous hope. As we rejoice in this Easter celebration, may we know the assurance that in Christ we need feel no guilt, doubt our sanctification, doubt that we are forgiven, for his resurrection is our proof that our sins died with him. That we died with him and we now share his risen life. And that our hope is not for this life alone, there is better to come. The hope of a world made new. Of sharing in his resurrection, of bodies made whole and new, cleansed from suffering, pain and sin, of a world made perfect, of seeing God face to face. As dawn breaks that first Easter morn, the world is changed completely. Jesus walks among us. Faith sparks. Our hope is not in vain.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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