| Easter Sermon 2006 |
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A group of women go to a tomb, they go in the dark and they arrive in the light. Very early, on the first day of the week and the sun has just risen. They go with love and longing, With precious spices ready to anoint. They seek the dead among the dead. And in between their living selves and the body of the man they loved is a stone. An enormous boulder blocking the path. Have you ever felt this way? Cut off? Abandoned? Bereft? Alone? Anyone of you who has loved and lost knows the feeling of having an enormous barrier placed in the path between them and the one who has gone. In the gospels, for the women, it is a stone. In Ancient Egypt it was the river, the river Styx which ferried the dead away, away, away.. For the Viking, tongues of fire were understood to flame at the gateway between this world and the next and in Greek myth, the gate to Hades, the Underworld, was guarded by a ferocious Dog called Cerberus, who would let no one pass. Through out the ages, humanity has attempted to explore, thru story and symbol what happens to us when we die, Where do we go? And what stops the living from following, grief filled, fast behind. So it is natural that this is what the women are talking about, as they hurry forward with the rising sun. Who will roll away the stone, how will they anoint the body of their friend? But they arrive at the entrance to the tomb and instead of a boulder there sits a young man What does he say? Lachlan: He is not here. Not here? Then where? This of course is the great question, the great life after death question, the question upon which our faith revolves. Our Christian tradition teaches us that that Christ is not here, in the empty tomb because he has risen, ah risen indeed, he is resurrected. And St Paul would tell us that ‘If there was no resurrection then we are all fools and if Christ has not been raised from the dead then our preaching is in vain’ Without the resurrection Christianity becomes just another ancient mythology with its own peculiar traditions, its cups of tea and persecutions, its liturgical and doctrinal bunfights, its reformations and its ridiculousness. The resurrection - what do we mean when we say this word and sing these songs: ‘ Christ the Lord is Risen today Hallelujah’ Well for starters we don’t mean resuscitation or corpses springing up from decay. So that’s where we start. Resurrection. It’s meaning is complex and has been debated by scholars for over 2000 years. Resurrection. The word itself is quite simple, its roots emerging from the Latin ‘surge’ which means, literally, to lead up from below. To lead up from below. Is that why we are here? Is that why you got out of bed early on this cold April morning and huddled into the car and maybe wiped chocolate of children’s faces and drove into the Easter still of Melbourne morning? To be led up from below? And where is below?
Is it the dark
place of fear and longing? Lets stop for a moment, stop like we don’t stop while we are watching that news, don’t stop because it just hurts too much So we change channels or turn away. Children thirsty. Is that the dark place we hope to be led up from? A world-weary sadness. Or is it the dark place of personal grief, have you lost someone since Easter last, have you lost them and you miss them and you miss them and oh God You miss them Is that the place from where you hope to be led, led out so that you no longer stand paralysed at the edge of the tomb? Or is it a more existential darkness, which you wish to surge from, An existential why am I here and what’s it all about? Traditionally Christianity has understood the resurrection to be a sign of God’s purpose to restore creation to whole, holy, wholeness. Death is defeated in Christ and so we are given hope that the principalities and powers which dog our days and break our hearts may be similarly defeated. The resurrection of Christ, years of scholarship and hunger and hurt and hope, what can be left to say? Perhaps just this: (Readers: Please sit as close to the front as you can and gather in a group close to the lectern. One by one make your way forward and speak your line clearly and slowly into the microphone, then stand in a line in front of the communion rail. THANKYOU)
Lachlan: Do not be afraid. Ralph: Feed my sheep. Nancy: Love one another. Clover: Come to me and I will give you rest. Tessa: I will not leave you orphaned. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Adrian: I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Behold! Behold, the resurrection!
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