Easter 2011

You all must have heard this little ditty....

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
How I wish he’d go away...

I bet the Jewish and Roman authorities in later years when they were old and grey, must have thought similarly about the curious and to them completely insignificant incident that happened just outside Jerusalem on the day after the Sabbath during Passover week.

We can imagine the Chief Priest and the Sanhedrin, meeting together after the Passover with a huge sense of relief. There they were, congratulating themselves on having got rid of a troublesome radical preacher and teacher, without public disturbances and with his band of followers in fear, in hiding and gone to ground.

We can sense their smirking self-satisfaction – we – WE preserved the peace. Won’t our Roman masters be grateful? Everything can now get back to normal.

But what was normal?

Nothing would ever be normal again! This event changed everything then, – changes everything today and will change everything in times to come until the end of the age!

Little did they know at the time the effect their decision would have, not just on Jerusalem but in the wider world!

Little did they know that what they had actually done was to release into the world one of the most amazing and stupendous events of all human history.

No doubt their spies and informants would have reported it to them......the disciples of the man you crucified three days ago are claiming that he isn’t in fact dead but has risen from the tomb and has appeared to them several times. What rot! The Centurion told us he was dead and he’s seen more dead men than we’ve had hot dinners so he should know.

Little did THEY know! I wonder whether they would have behaved any differently if they’d known what was going to happen? I shouldn’t think so – they were so wrapped up in the Law and all its intricacies, and the politicking with the Romans and their little internal power squabbles that they had little time for actually seeking the Kingdom of God.

Little did they know that the followers of this man whom they had killed, who had run away and had hidden themselves, for fear that they same thing would happen to them, would be so affected , so changed by this event that didn’t even show up as a small blip on the Roman radar, this strange happening in a small backwater province, would be so empowered, eventually so filled with the Holy Spirit that they, poorly educated (or not educated at all) Galilean fishermen, tax collectors, would go out and change the world.

Yes, that’s right, change the world.

We’ve seen people, individuals, try to change the world in our lifetimes, and not always for the good. Hitler and Stalin for example. But who cannot see Martin Luther King’s speech “I have a dream” without a lump in the throat?

How about Mother Teresa? And many others we can think of, William Wilberforce (though I hesitate to say that he lived in anyone’s lifetime here!)

Not many people can say that they’ve changed the world, can they?

But these people did. That is what this thing did to them. From fear and hiding to eloquence and mission and eventual martyrdom for Jesus.

And, as a direct result of that event two thousand years ago, when the relationship between God and humankind was changed for ever by Jesus rising from the dead and his subsequent ascension, we are here today.

As a direct result of Jesus rising from the dead, we have been enabled to hear his saving word, two thousand years afterwards.

If that morning had never happened, then neither would Pentecost and neither would the missions of Peter, Paul and all those Apostles who brought the Good News not just to the Israelites, but more importantly, eventually to all the nations of the world.

Jesus of Nazareth would have remained just that – a wandering teacher with a small following, another sect within Judaism.

That is something to marvel at I think, something that is such a gift that it cannot be given a price, cannot be evaluated in human terms, but only in God’s terms, which we of course are so far below as to make that unimaginable.

This one event changed the course of human history. Not all for the good I’m afraid as we all know there have been some horrific things done in the name of Christianity and the Church in the past.

But this ONE event, this greatest gift from God himself, second only to the gift of his Son to us in human form, this one event is the dividing point or line between separation and salvation.

God has shown us that there is nothing to fear, nothing to be afraid of when that time comes because Death has been overcome. The darkness has not prevailed and the temple veil HAS been torn in two, giving us a glimpse of the glories beyond.

It’s been said that hell is the absence of God, but by this wondrous act, there is no absence of God for anyone who chooses to accept Jesus as Lord.

But let’s put aside the actual physical event – we can no more comprehend the effect this had on the disciples as we can comprehend what was here before the universe was created – our minds cannot fathom it.

What we can do though is to think about what resurrection has done in our lives – because any resurrection that we partake in as part of our journey of faith IS the same as that first resurrection that occurred on that first Easter morning.

Any dying to old ways and re-birth to new is part of that resurrection – is a rebirth into new life.

It’s no accident that many baptisms are held on Easter morning, being THE time when old becomes new, when life turns from darkness to light.

And that’s really what we are talking about here, turning from darkness to light.

I well remember at St Mary’s on the Hill in Harrow, at the dawn Easter service – the dawn lit up the east window of the church just as we started to sing the Gloria. What a moment that was! A real and tangible symbol of the glory of God – the very real dispersion of darkness to be replaced by glorious light flooding over everyone.

A very real symbol that on that first Easter morning, that God did indeed conquer the darkness – we have no need to fear it anymore. Death is not the end – it’s just a gateway.

And because Jesus rose to new life and then ascended to Heaven, the first human to do so, we have that promise that we too will rise and go to heaven, to finally see God as he is, face to face.

And because Jesus was raised from the dead, he IS now a living presence, living with us, in us and walking with us in our earthly journeys.

What comfort, what hope, what joy there is in that, knowing that the risen Lord is real and here with us, his presence is promised until he comes again in his glory.

And, yes, like the man who we met on the stair, he will NOT go away!

I wish you all the most joyous and peaceful of Eastertides, rejoicing in the knowledge that our Lord HAS risen. Alleluia!

Epiphany

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.

Thus begins one of the most famous poems about the visit of the wise men to the infant Jesus by TS Elliot, and very appropriate too, considering the weather we've just had!

So just who were these people and why did they make this hard long journey, and what does this say to us today?

Well let's get rid of some myths and legends.

Firstly they weren't kings – they were probably Persian Zoroastrian priests – wealthy men yes, and wise and learned – hence the term Magi...but not kings

Secondly the only intimation about numbers is from the three gifts they presented – there's no indication in the bible at all that there were only three.

Thirdly Mark Luke and John don't mention them at all (in fact Mark doesn't tell us anything of the birth – he just starts right in with the ministry of John the Baptist) and Matthew has them visiting the house (presumably in Nazareth) rather than the stable in Bethlehem.

So why does Matthew consider the visit of the Wise men to be important?

Well, Matthew was writing for Jews, probably abroad in Greek or Roman communities, and because of this the main thrust of Matthew's Gospel is the Kingship of Jesus, hence the importance of the wise men's question when they arrived in Jerusalem - “Where can we find the child born King of the Jews”? And the subsequent fear of Herod that he is about to be deposed.

All through Matthew's Gospel there is this thread of Kingship – started off right at the beginning by the appearance of the Magi. The Magi represent, for Matthew and his intended audience, an acknowledgement by an authority other than within the Jewish community that here indeed was the long-foretold King, the Messiah who was to lead Israel out of their current state of captivity and enslavement under the hated Romans.

I don't know whether any of you saw the Top Gear Christmas special on Boxing day – an amusing but quite mad attempt to re-create the journey of the Magi from Persia (actually from modern day Iraq) to Bethlehem by the three loonies in two seater sports cars, which included quite a lot of tough travelling and tiredness and all the other stuff they get up to, including in this program, a hospitalisation.

I think that in this country we have certainly completely lost the sense of how hard travelling was in those days. Any of you who have been to third-world countries and who have ventured off the tarmac will at once remember how hard those desert/bush/jungle tracks are to progress along, even in today's sophisticated four-wheel drive vehicles.

Think how much harder it was for the Magi – unreliable maps (if they had them at all), no roads as we know them, and none at all if they weren't travelling on a recognised caravan route, bandits, having to navigate between water hole and water hole, a thousand miles of harsh desert, hunger, heat, thirst, freezing temperatures by night, personal danger and not knowing what sort of reception they would get from Herod and his hired thugs when they eventually arrived at their destination

And yet, they went.

They took a step out into the unknown, into something new and entirely outside their experiences.

They went because they believed that the event they had foretold, that they'd seen in their observances through astronomy, in mathematics, was so momentous, had such import for the future of all humankind that they suffered all that hardship to be there.

And they weren't of the Jewish faith at all, they weren't even local, they'd travelled from a far country, out of their normal circles, away from their homes and families and friends.

They considered this to be such an important event that they HAD to be there.

The birth of Jesus, a bridge from heaven to earth, and also a bridge from earth to heaven, IS the most momentous happening that has ever happened in the world – is of such importance to all people.

Without this birth, that took place in a small, ordinary town in a small poor unimportant province of the Roman Empire, there would have been no suffering and death, no crucifixion and most important of all, no Easter morning, and none of us would be here today, we would probably be dancing around in the woods, wreathed in oak leaf garlands!

We ourselves start on a journey, long and arduous, right from when we are born, right up to the moment of our transformation into heaven.

There can be many different hardships and joys on this journey, but whatever happens, whatever transpires, we need to keep the example of the Magi ever in our hearts and minds.

They never wavered from their quest, even though they were outsiders.

They kept their destination firmly in view, and believed that they would eventually arrive.

That is what we call faith, and our journey must indeed be a journey of faith, even as theirs was.

Faith is that state of mind where we KNOW something to be true even if there is no visible evidence. Faith is what moves mountains into the sea.

Faith is what sustains us even through the hardest of times.

Faith is what gives us hope that even in the darkest night, the morning will dawn.

The Magi had something guiding them – whether you like to imagine a bright star moving with them, or a very special astronomical conjunction, or a supernova, or whatever the astronomers and historians tell us it might have been – there was something guiding them - their faith showed it to them and they kept on seeing it through faith until they came to the place they were meant to.

We too have a guiding star, a special conjunction, a light in the sky.

Although unlike the Magi it's not guiding us TO the place of the infant Jesus' birth, but from it, a journey that comes along side ours, along our life's path, through hardship and joy, through doubt and despair, through the dark night into the dawn.

TS Elliot ended his poem on a dark and despairing note, one born of agnosticism at best and no hope at worst:

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

But our hope is beyond that, beyond the pain and death, in the dawn that is the true culmination, the true destiny of us and those Magi long ago – indeed of all humanity - the dawn that rises in triumph on Easter morning and our guide is not a star or conjunction or supernova, but that infant we worship at this time with those Magi – the person of God on earth, God with us, Emmanuel, grown into full stature of both God and Man, whose destiny was to die, yes, to die, but to rise again for us.

Jesus Christ.