Easter Sunday

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.”

 Something that we sometimes miss in all the hub-bub around Easter Day is that while it’s a celebratory time for us, it wasn’t so for those disciples of Jesus.

Our Gospel today, the 20th Chapter of John’s Gospel, speaks of the first day of the week – this morning – some 2000 years ago, when Mary Magdalene goes early to the tomb only to find the stone that was once rolled in front of it moved. She runs to Peter and John and tells them the news, figuring that the body had been removed by parties unknown.

Peter and John run together to the tomb, with John reaching it first, they peer in and see Jesus’ graveclothes lying there, but no body. We like to hear the accounts from the other Evangelists that include the angel, or even the mysterious Gardener (Jesus himself), accounts which give us a certain degree of certainty, but not here, not from John. The Gospel tells us, “for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”

Now I know I am going to sound like a stuck record, and I know that surely at the end of this long week, at the end of several long services, at the end of a long lent, you’re going to say “yes, we know, Rev’d Colin, we are like the disciples, we are the ones who often don’t believe. Blah blah blah, get to the good news,” and I will. But first we need to talk about how we are like the disciples.

But in all seriousness, it’s an important to note that this unimaginably good news – the news of Jesus’ resurrection – didn’t seem at first like good news to those to whom Jesus had spent three years teaching that this moment would come. If it didn’t quite sink in for even those who heard it from his own mouth for three years, no wonder it doesn’t always sink in for us.

Throughout the Easter season we will see each Sunday how the Disciples gradually come to recognize the resurrection of Jesus, mostly by coming to recognize him in his friendship and his love. Josh made that beautiful connection between Peter’s denial around a charcoal fire on Good Friday and the moment when he at last comes to recognize his resurrected friend at a charcoal fire on a beach, the only two times charcoal fires are named in the entirety of the Bible. It's in something familiar, a reminiscence of Jesus’ miracles and care, that he comes to know truly.

Josh’s point on Good Friday, and it’s one I think that we need to know today especially, but must remember always, is that God came to save and to forgive, but as a saviour we know not in the abstract or the ideal, but whom we know just as we know a beloved friend. He came not to be a friend to humanity in a collective sense; he came to be a friend to you.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but ads are popping up on my Facebook left and right for something called The Chosen a serial show and depiction of Jesus’ life and ministry, and one of the clips that keeps popping up – which means I’ve watched it and cried about 30 times already – is Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. I can’t speak for the series, but the clip, I think, does a good job of reminding us of what it might have been like to encounter Jesus and his piercing love and knowledge of our souls.

The woman at the well scoffs that Jesus would talk to her, laughing at the whole situation until Jesus revealing details about her life, her past husbands, their names, what they were like – things nobody could ever know – and she comes to believe. It’s a depiction that reminds us of something true about God that Josh said on Friday - that while theology, and doctrine, and things in books can tell us about God, if we want to know God we must allow God to befriend us.

Because it is for friendship with us, for relationship with you – a relationship that can upend, as I quoted from Anthony Bloom the other day, every aspect of our lives -  that Jesus came into this world, went to the cross, and rose from the grave.

And just in case you’re wondering if it’s really that simple, I want to offer you a piece of wisdom that was relayed to me, wisdom from someone wise beyond their years, someone from this parish, and someone under the age of 10.

This person drew a picture of Jesus a few weeks ago and I got sent a message with a picture of the picture and noted two things – the first was something that made me feel ashamed: we know that while we’re all meant to emulate Jesus and strive to be more like Him, in this drawing he was sporting a six-pack that I am not sure I’ll ever be able to attain. But the other thing I noted was the expression on his face.

So I asked the drawer’s mum whether the artist thought that Jesus was happy or sad to die on the cross for us. And their response was a mic-drop moment, because I think the artist realized innately that it’s a silly question to ask.

When asked, the young artist simply touched his mother’s head and said, “What he had in his mind…was you.”

Now I quoted St. Paul the other day in a sermon when he says that the message of the cross seems foolish to all but those who believe in it, to them it is the power of God, and the artist’s comment wouindeed seems to vast majority of the world to be very silly: this idea that you are of such infinite value to God, you are so beloved of God, you are a thing that God desires to know so badly that, in the words of CS Lewis in Mere Christianity (words with which I tend to agree), “When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only person in the world.”

That is, even if you were still Peter, and the only person on earth, and somehow managed to deny ever knowing Jesus, he would still wash your feet, tell you he loves you, die for you, and then come looking for you.

What we proclaim today, Easter Sunday, is the central proclamation of the Christian Faith. What we proclaim today is the fulfillment of every hope you will ever or could ever have. It is something that no symbol, no metaphor, and nothing less than what it truly is could ever give you. The proclamation that CHRIST IS RISEN. JESUS LIVES.

Not in our memories.

Not in a story.

Not in his teaching.

Not that he lived then but that he lives NOW.

And he lives. For you.

He lived then. He died then. And he lives now. For you.

The artist I quoted was right about what Jesus had in his mind on the cross. But the whole truth is that what he has always had in his mind, from the moment life was breathed into the world by the Father until that moment on the cross, and in this moment right now: is you.

The tomb being found empty today is the greatest proof we have and all that we need to know what kind of friend he is.

Amen.