Resurrection Day

Resurrection Day has arrived.

We celebrate this Easter Day each year because it is important for us to go over the story again.  When we tell the story it reminds us of the depth of God’s grace and love for us.

It is also true that we celebrate the Resurrection every Sunday when we gather for worship and share in the Lord’s Supper.

But it is also true that we celebrate the resurrection every morning when we awaken to a new day.  That in itself is like being raise from the death of sleep to the life of a new day.

So what I am wondering today is “What does the resurrection of Jesus mean for you?  Right now?  Here today?”

I think we all know that the Resurrection of Jesus is a very powerful declaration of God’s love for us.  It is something that we believe changes the whole cosmos.

But what difference does it make for you?

For some of you your understanding of the resurrection might have been the one thing that gave you hope for a new life when you were running away from your homeland to keep safe.  In finding a place of refuge you have experienced NEW LIFE in a very practical way.

Some of you may have been going through some very dark times in your lives.  Maybe illness.  Maybe stress in your job.  Maybe broken relationships.  When you look at the Resurrection you might find the courage to hope for a new life too.

By the resurrection of Jesus we are able to have a deep personal relationship with God.  If nothing else, the Jesus story tells us that Jesus was God who came among us and lived like us.  He showed us what God was like and he showed us what we can be like.

A long time ago in England there was a battle between the English and the Normans at a place called Hastings – 1066ad it was.  Against a much greater enemy, the English were almost winning.

This was in part because a rumour had started among the Norman troops that their leader – King William – was dead.  They were all losing heart.

Unfortunately for the English, the rumour was not true.  When King William heard about it, he took off his helmet and rode up and down among his troops shouting “I am alive!  I am alive!”

The result was immediate.  It was almost as if these dead bodies of soldiers were raised to new life.  They found new courage. 

I suppose this story gives a glimpse of how the disciples might have felt after they had seen Jesus crucified and put in the tomb.  They were certainly sad but I am sure they also lost heart.

The message from the Angel in Matthew’s account has a sequence to it.  The angel says “Do not be afraid.”  How easily fear gets in the way.  It prevents us from living the great life God wants us to have.  But the angel tells us – Do not be afraid – he is alive.”

Then he says “Go and tell his disciples that Jesus is risen.”  When they did that – half afraid and half joyful – they met Jesus.  When they met Jesus they did what comes naturally.  They worshipped him.

On Thursday evening I mentioned a story to you by Wendell Berry in which Jaber Crow has a vision of what life could be like in the church – a vision of the church the way it will never be, but a vision that inspires our faith.

Galal said to us on Friday that we should have courage in our faith.

Archbishop Roger told us yesterday that through the resurrection of Jesus and our baptism all those markers of difference between us have been washed away.  We are no longer able to get caught up in fighting over our differences.

Today I say to you – live the resurrection every day.

Wendell Berry in a poem he wrote called Manifesto: Mad Farmers Liberation Front makes it clear to us that if we are to live in Resurrection ways, everyone else will think we are mad.  That is because the ways of the world are so opposite to the ways of the Gospel.

He says:

So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute.  Love the Lord. Love the world.  Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. 

He even says many other things that even you English speakers might puzzle over.  The very last phrase of his poem is what I want to leave with you.  He says:

Practice resurrection.

I leave it with you because I don’t really know what it means.  I can’t easily explain it.  But I know it is something I must do.  Many times I will not get it right.  Every day I will practice it.  I trust that the Lord will trouble your mind as you try to understand what it means for you.

A Maundy Meditation

The human feet are amazing.

It is an infinitely flexible thing that is very hard for robots to imitate – but it is the 26 bones in each foot that enable us to walk upright. 

It is also amazing, when you think about it that those few square centimetres of the soles of your feet carry the full weight of your body – which represents quite a bit of pressure per square centimetre.  Is it any wonder that these little appendages to our legs get rather tired by the end of a day?

Consequently there are few things that can equal the sensational pleasure of a good foot massage.  We work them hard all day yet we rarely afford them the pleasure of a good rub to relax all those muscles that control all those bones.

Dusty and arid places take their toll on feet so it is not surprising that many of the peoples who live in such places have social rituals that involve the washing of feet.

Here, at the end of his life, Jesus knows exactly how to show his disciples how much he loves them.  “He had always loved those in the world who were his own and he loved them to the very end.”  In order to express his love for them he washes their feet.

There is an incredible intimacy in this story – as there is in the stories of the two women who anointed or washed Jesus’ feet – as Jesus stoops gently and graciously to attend to the feet of his friends.  In this simple act of cleansing, Jesus draws even closer to his dear friends.

But Jesus was concerned about greater things than just giving hid friends a nice feeling.

Where our other Gospel writers tell a story about the Last Supper, John focusses on this gesture of humility and service by Jesus as his ultimate act before the crucifixion.

In his conversation with Peter he makes it clear that participation in this is an essential expression of our desire to follow in his Way.  He offers this with an ultimatum – “If you do not let me do this for you, then you will no longer be mi disciple.”  Accepting this means going all the way to the cross with him.

When we let this become a bit more personal we begin to realise that it is about letting Jesus get close enough to us to wash our dirtiest dirt away – the really cleanse us.

But this foot washing is more than a personal call to follow Jesus.  It is more than a one-on-one experience.  Jesus is laying before his disciples a sacramental vision: a vision of the promises between God and us.  It is a vision of Christian community at its best. 

Interestingly foot-washing has never been elevated to sacramental status in our protestant tradition, it certainly has elements of sacrament.  A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward spiritual reality.  This sacrament conveys to us a vision of what can be in the community of God’s people.

We need such visions, visions of what we are striving for, visions of how God wants us to live with one another.

American novelist and poet Wendell Berry wrote a wonderful story he called Jaber Crow.  The main character in the story is the town barber who is also the church cleaner.

One day, after he had been doing this faithfully for a number of years Jaber had a kind of epiphany or revelation about this congregation of people he knew so well.  An overwhelming vision takes hold of him.  He sees the community of this congregation “perfected beyond time by one another’s love.”  It is a vision of the community as it will never be: PERFECT.

But what Jaber sees is powerful enough to feed his faith and keep him moving towards something better than this present reality.

Jesus left his Disciples and us with that sort of vision.  His parting gift to us all is a stunning image of Christian community at its best.  He leaves us with a vision of a place where Christian brothers and sisters love and care for one another as he has loved us.

This is a picture for us of Jesus’ very commandment to us to love one another as he has loved us.

Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities around the world describes it in these words, and then asks us two questions.

“To wash the feet of a brother or sister in Christ, to allow someone to wash our feet, is a sign that we want to follow Jesus, to take the downward path, to find Jesus’ presence in the poor and the weak.

“Is it not a sign that we too want to live a heart-to-heart relationship with others, to meet them as a person and a friend, and to live in communion with them?

“Is it not also a sign that we yearn to be women and men of forgiveness, to be cleansed and healed and to heal and cleanse others and thus to live more fully in communion with Jesus?”

It is in this that these two sacraments merge tonight – the foot-washing as a sign of our love for one another, and the Holy Communion as a sign of God’s eternal and cosmic love for us all.

Waving Palms with Passion

We tell this story year after year.

It is the story that is the foundation of our faith.

There is no other story bigger than this.  Jesus was born and lived among us as one of us.  The religious and political rules of his day were afraid of him.  They killed him.  They thought it would be the end.  But we know it was not.

We tell the story today in a different way from what we will do next week.

Today we began with the joy of the palms.  You cannot tell this part of the story without feeling it was a happy thing. 

But did you notice the change of mood when we came inside.  Everything changed once we started to read the Passion story.

On the Lord’s Table this morning I have an Icon of this story.  Somehow it captures both these moods.  Jesus is coming into the picture followed by his happy disciples.  You can see the palms and the clothes on the road.

But you can see the religious leaders in the gateway to the city.  That man in front is not holding a palm.  He is holding a whip.  These are the people that in a few days will be calling out “Crucify him!”

This change of mood in the story is like the change of mood in the crowd.  On this day they loved Jesus.  Next Friday they want to kill him.

What happened?

I am not sure at all.  Nobody really knows.  But I can tell you what it makes me think of.

Remember the story Jesus told of the Sower.  He told us about the wheat that fell on stony ground or among the thorns.  The seeds took of growing very quickly to begin with.  Then they got choked by the weeds or ran out of soil.

We are all in danger of being like this.  Now we are cheering for Jesus.  Another day we will have no time for Jesus.

How will we protect our life in Jesus from this?

Can I suggest a couple of things?  You probably know it already.  But it is good to be reminded.

Spend regular time with Jesus. 

This can be for Bible reading.  This can be for prayer.  When we began Lent I suggested this was a good time to do a little extra.

As we begin Holy week we have even more chances to do this. 

·        Devotional Book for Holy Week

·        Special Services over Easter Weekend

This can be a very special time of devotion for you all.  I would like to encourage you all to plan now to spend next weekend as quietly as possible.  Don’t let busy things fill the gaps between our services.  Come to all the services if you can.  Let this most sacred story sink deep into your soul.  Make the whole weekend of Easter your special time of devotion to Jesus.

Spend time in your faith community.

The story of Jesus makes us all brothers and sisters.  We have all kinds of names for the church:

·        A family

·        The body of Christ

·        The Kingdom of God

The importance of these names is that they emphasise that we belong together. 

In the Letter to the Hebrews we are warned very strongly not to neglect meeting together.  This is a very important thing.  It is in this place that we are encouraged in our faith.  It is in this way that we grow in our faith.

We now begin this most Holy Week of the Christian year.  May you join with those waving the palms in rejoicing in the arrival of the Son of David.  May you continue in your faith with the women at the foot of the cross.  May you not have occasion to deny him as some of his friends did.  And if you fail him in any way may you feel his loving arms calling you back into his loving embrace.  Amen.

Agents of the Resurrection

Whenever we took our kids on a holiday in the car, the travelling time seemed interminable to them.  We did all sorts of things to distract them.  We had music tapes of stories and songs that they really loved.  And I remember taking Ben and Laura to Carnarvon by myself so I organised for both of them to have their own Gameboy Console to play endless games on.

But inevitably they would ask the very simple question – “Are we there yet?”

Perhaps you are feeling a bit like that after a full month of Lenten thoughts and meditations – whatever you might have been doing.

Our readings today are a bit like an orchestral overture – giving us a hint of what we are set to catch a glimpse of in just a short while – the Resurrection!

I want you to bring up in your imagination an image of that valley of dry bones that Ezekiel is confronted with in his vision.

You have to admit that it is an extraordinary image.  But it is clearly a metaphor of what God wants the people of Israel to understand – a metaphor so vivid that its message will be unmistakeable.  God would restore the long-exiled nation back to their homeland.  This would be on a national scale like the resuscitation of Lazarus, Jesus’ friend.

I want us to do some work on this story with a Gospel twist to it – perhaps one you might not have expected, but one which is clearly derived from the text.

You all know that I began my professional life as a Primary School teacher and even though I only spent 3 years as a professional teacher, I feel like I have been involved in education all my life, especially in my last few years at YouthCARE as Head of Religious Education and Volunteer Services.  This role involved me in a great deal of training of staff and volunteers for their roles in YouthCARE’s work.

Along the way I have gained a lot of inspiration from the ancient wisdom of the Chinese in this proverb:

“Tell me and I will forget.

Show me and I will remember.

Involve me and I will understand.

Step back and I will act.”

I believe there is something really important for us to understand as we look at the way this story is told.

The Lord transports Ezekiel into this vision and asks him what he sees.  The Lord then asks Ezekiel an important question: “Can these bones live?”

I love Ezekiel’s response:  “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know that.”  It was as if he was retorting back to the Lord “Is that a trick question?”

But the Lord presses on.  “Prophesy to these bones,” he said.

Now Ezekiel was a professional Prophet for over 50 years as best we can tell, and he had always understood that words of prophesy were to be directed at the people – never before had he been directed by the Lord to prophesy to inanimate objects of any kind.  Yet here was the Lord commanding him to do just that.

It is a wonderful story as it unfolds, and the Lord is particular to explain clearly to Ezekiel what it all means – it is of course about the restoration of Israel from the Exile they had been condemned to in Ezekiel’s earlier prophesies.

What strikes me as interesting in this story is this.  It all happens in a vision – it isn’t “real” so to speak – so why didn’t the Lord just explain to him what all the dry bones represented and ask Ezekiel if he thought that he, the Lord, could make them all come alive again?

As the story unfolds it is clear that the Lord wants Ezekiel to be involved in this.  This is where I feel like the wisdom of the proverb is coming in. 

·        The Lord could have told Ezekiel what he was going to do – maybe he would have remembered it. 

·        He did show him what he was going to do – that would make sure he remembered it. 

·        But he went further – the Lord involved Ezekiel in the story.  The Lord told Ezekiel to Prophesy.  I wonder even if there was something of a point being made that the Lord could not actually do it alone – without the voice of Ezekiel to Prophesy.  I wonder if this is what Ezekiel understood.

At the end of the Vision, of course, the Lord did step away and turned it all over the Ezekiel.  It was now up to him.  He had become an agent of the restoration of Israel – if only he would prophesy as the Lord had commanded him.

Now this is a thought I want you to consider.  Soon we will be joyously celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus.  One thing we know about this is that this resurrection was just the beginning of a much greater resurrection in which we can all experience new life in God.  And resurrection has become a powerful means by which people and even whole communities can be transformed.

In what ways, then, can we be like Ezekiel?  Can we see ourselves becoming agents of Resurrection in our communities?  God has shown us the resurrection in Christ but he needs us to be the ones who bring it into being in our communities – empowered by the Spirit of God. 

Teresa of Avilla in Spain penned this wonderful poem:

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks with
Compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks with
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

We are called to be agents of the Resurrection.  May God give us all the grace and the will to share this in our communities.