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Sermon - Easter Dawn Service (B) - 12th April 2009
St Alban's Anglican Church Epping 5:30am
The Resurrection of Jesus
Like Mary, and the other Mary, we have come early to look for Jesus. But unlike Mary, we know what happened next.
One of the hardest things, they say, about putting ourselves in the shoes of someone else is to take off our own. We cannot put off the knowledge we have, both of the events of that first Easter morning and all its impact in the succeeding two thousand years. We cannot imagine what life would have been like, what the world would have been like, without knowledge of an empty tomb.
We can only, then, sense a part of Mary’s reaction to her discovery. Probably, she came in the darkest frame of mind and spirit, after the darkest days leading up to the Sabbath. The enormous emotional swings of loss and helplessness would have served only to intensify her darkness. The least she could do would be to dress the broken body and embalm it properly after the hurry of the Sabbath preparation. It must have been, for all Jesus’ followers, a very dismal Sabbath.
And however hard we try, however profound our joy and gratitude, our elation and excitement at this new light of Easter, our wonder at the dazzling light of this new day, new light, new life is probably a little paler than that of Mary, and the other Mary.
It must be some twenty years, or nearly, since I sat in one of those pews one Easter morning, about five rows back, that I came closest ever to that same sense of revelation and wonder. It was one of those epiphanies, one of those ‘aha!’ the ‘wow!’ moments when things flood not just into the senses, but into what we call the supersensible reality of our deepest selves. The senses may be provoked by the sights, the sounds, the smells of this experience, but where it really strikes is beyond the senses - at the heart of who we are, and of who we are in the oneness with God that is the quest and purpose of our pilgrimage. We catch hold of those moments and cling on to them, for there are plenty of times in the desert places of our journey where we struggle to find such intimacy.
The dawn began to break that morning and the warm, golden glow started to fill the building and I remember how it felt to me like a rebirth. I was coming alive again, out of the deepest sleep, an arid time of emptiness where I seemed a long way from God.
At those times, I wonder, like Jesus on the cross, why we feel so abandoned by God, but the realisation soon comes that it isn’t God who moves. We are the weak and faithless ones who move away, who create the distance. But God, constant and ever-faithful, brings us back.
Then, there was another dawning; that it was the light of God’s creation, the new day coming to life as it had done time and again over thousands of ages, which, in God’s sight are like an evening gone. But here, that day, for me the morning was breaking like the first morning, touched by the realisation that this was happening through the image of Jesus in the stained glass here behind me. A glow, it was, like fire, warming the sanctuary. God in Christ, through Christ, more than through the image, through the person of Christ, was bringing the world back to life. It was God’s creation and recreation of humanity all folded into one. What I had known all along about the meaning of Easter I felt, perhaps in this intensity for the first time. It was beyond comprehension; it was experience.
We have heard again the story of the people of God from the time when the earth was void and formless. And woven through that narrative is the unending record of God’s goodness and promises. The covenants made with Noah, Abraham, Moses on behalf of the people; the promises of the prophets – Isaiah, Baruch the scribe, Zephaniah
My steadfast love shall not depart from you (despite our faithlessness and fickleness).
And my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you (which is thoroughly undeserved).
In righteousness you shall be established (not in our righteousness, but in God’s).
The stars shone with gladness for him who made them – this is our God (our God, and nothing less).
I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean.
What powerfully evocative words express the promises of God through the ages. And how patient had God’s people been in waiting for their fulfilment, for the Messiah, the anointed one to bring all this to pass.
The two women making their way to the tomb knew all this. They had learned the stories, they knew the promises. And in their despondency, they must have been wondering, muttering “Promises, promises!”. It would be only human to doubt the unfulfilled promises of God.
And then they encounter the promise of God come alive in its earth-shaking, veil-rending, stone-rolling, life-changing reality. ‘He is not here! He is raised.’ What news beyond belief; with what unutterable joy must they have received the announcement.
If, like Mary, we came early this morning, but in the knowledge that we were to encounter the Christ of the Resurrection, I wonder in what frame of mind we have travelled through the last weeks of Lent, through Holy Week, the Passion and the dying? Is there still a bit of us that despite the knowledge of a promise fulfilled, awaits the coming of the Kingdom with a sense of impatience? Most, I suspect, will admit that we are still a long way off. Are we there yet? I don’t think so - It’s a pretty messy world where the imperatives of the Kingdom don’t resonate as strongly and persistently as they should.
In the OT readings this early morning, and in our response to them, there may be a small clue. The covenants, the commitments of God to the patriarchs and to us are a two-way street. They are promises made to the people of God, and the prophets have plenty of news for those who retain the arrogant disobedience of the very first earth creatures. We cannot expect all to be well by sitting on our hands and waiting for God to do all the work.
Just look at what Jesus says to the early risers who go in search of him – “Go and tell...” The Resurrection has happened and Jesus doesn’t muck about. The first work of evangelism, of sharing the good news is entrusted to these folk (and two women, no less! Jesus doesn’t see it as a male prerogative.) The life of the Church has begun – and Jesus has the fifty days through the Ascension to Pentecost to get us up to speed. Get involved, he says, and get others involved, too. Tell the good news!
We who came early reignited the Light of Christ that lit up, illuminated the world on the first Easter Day. It is a gift to us, pure grace and we carried it into the darkness of this place. We carried it to meet the light of God in the creation of every day. Here the two found a meeting place - the power of the Word that was in the very beginning and that same Word, alive and risen, is here now, in all the intensity of its resurrection freshness. How faithful God is.
And where were we? Right there at the centre of that meeting-place.
But we who have carried it in need to be the ones, like Mary, to carry the light on from here, from this bright light shining through the darkness of death into the darkness that still confounds so much of God’s Creation. If we are reborn in this blaze of wonder, it is not for its own sake alone. It is not just about booking our front seat in heaven. It is so that we who are freed from the darkness of our own death can take the same light to others.
But Jesus has given us a little time to savour the moment, to meet again and recognise the One who walks and talks and breaks bread with us. Let us pause, meet him afresh, here as in Galilee, take hold of his feet in worship. So now we can stop, immerse ourselves in this moment of recreation and let us celebrate the feast!