Sermon for Sunday 8th April - Easter Day - 2012

Sermon for Easter Sunday 2012

‘Early on the first day of the week, whilst it was yet dark’

What can prepare us for Easter?

Today we celebrate The Great Feast of the church’s year. Easter Day. Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed!! Alleluia -The church is Full of Glad triumphant shouts - we Celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ . . . but  . . . today is just the first Day which the church in her wisdom gives to us for this celebration of Easter - this Season of Easter is six long weeks long - and it needs to be. For this message of Resurrection takes a long time to sink deep into our hearts and minds wherein it might ignite the fire of death defying faith. This is clearly revealed in the gospels as Jesus appears again and again and again to his disciples, teaching Rebuking, forgiving - it will be six weeks before he has prepared them to receive within themselves that concrete Assurance of the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit. We do not find Peter rushing from the tomb to declare ‘Christ is Risen and preaching boldly to all who will hear. No, bold Peter will not be seen until Pentecost. Today is Just the beginning? We are not yet ready.

I know the church is more beautifully bedecked on this day than any other, yet there is a sense in which we actually need to build the flowers up gradually over six weeks, until this Resurrection message has sunk deep into us - that over the six weeks of Easter the church becomes brighter and brighter. The message is Too big - we cannot receive it ALL at one go. We are not yet ready or prepared. It is early on the first day of the week, it is yet dark. John in his gospel makes much of light and darkness, Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the dark - he doesn’t understand.  ‘For as yet they did not understand’ Here John reveals that Easter Brightness is So bright that it blinds and dawns only slowly in the hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples as their hearts and minds are transformed by this Reality. While it was yet dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb

Of course we have the benefit of having gone through Lent and Holy Week and Easter many many times - We might think we do not need time for the message to dawn in our hearts, we know the story. ‘Of course Christ is Risen!’ Yet are we Alive with indestructible life and faith? We look back to the early church that had taken those six weeks to absorb the message and see what became the most incredible missionary movement the world had ever known, empowered by the Truth of the Resurrection. We think of the many many martyrs of the church in those early years who went fearlessly to their deaths because the Knew that Christ was Risen, and a whole New Reality had been ushered in, in which one might live lives of Bold faith, Lives without fear. And now almost one in 4 of the population of the world in some sense other own the name of Christ. Will this day send us out to do likewise? Have we yet entered into the Deep Magic of this story, to use CS Lewis’s phrase  - have we Particpated in it - or have we been mere observers? Has it become Our Reality?

It was Maundy Thursday in 2001. As was my custom I went to the Diocesan Chrism Eucharist - but I went with a very heavy heart. 2001 was a Very bleak year for some of us in England - it was the year of the terrible foot and mouth epidemic. Our TV screens were full of scenes of burning mountains of cattle and sheep - and for me it was very personal. Just a couple of days before, a farm adjoining my uncle’s farm had had a case of Foot and Mouth found on it - we knew what this meant. In the policy enforced at the time, there had to be in the clinical language of death, a contiguous cull. In an effort to stop the disease spreading, not only the stock on the affected farm, but all stock on all adjoining farms had to be culled. As I went to church that MAundy Thursday, I knew that the stock wagons and the men from the Ministry with their rifles would be rounding up my uncles stock and shooting them. His prized wild fell cattle, the eldest of which was born the first summer they’d gone to the Lake district farm 31 years earlier, all of them were to be slaughtered in an effort to stop the spread of this terrible disease. So I was in tears as I left the mass that morning - barely able to shake the bishops hand as I walked out of church.
    Only to return home to hear of the cruelest of twists. My uncle’s farm is remote and the track up to it deeply rutted and overhung with ancient trees - the stock trucks hadn’t made it up to the farm that day in time to carry out the cull. They would return the following day, Good Friday. It was Appallingly bleak  - and I was due to preach on Easter Day, to a church full of good and smiling folk, wanting to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ - How can you preach Life in the midst of Death? Humanly speaking?


What can prepare us for Easter? It is So outside our categories - the terrible reality of life often denies any sense of hope that we might know for ouselves. To have grieved with my family in that most terrible of days and then to preach resurrection?

What can prepare us for Easter, I was speaking to someone earlier in the week who told me that they found joy on Easter Day all but impossible, for on Good Friday it felt to them like their best friend had died - ‘and now three days later He is Risen?? Excuse me, but it will take time’ - when someone in whom you have invested you life dies, very publicly and before your eyes - and then in the space of only 40 hours or so, you hear a whisper, a rumour of life, are you suddenly going to shout Aloud - He is Risen indeed Alleluia!! When you’ve gone through Hell, Rumours of Life can only first come as a whisper. And a shocking whisper at that. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; - but there isn’t widespread rejoicing. No, it is a total shock to the system - the gospel is silent about the reaction of the disciples - Shock - Silence - what can this mean?? How, humanly speaking could they have ever begun to speak of this? In the face of Death it is an Utterly shocking message - almost Mocking our senses - HOw Can this be!! It will take time and great gentleness - the Risen Christ does not burst onto the scene - compelling people to believe - Grief and darkness must be fully known, because this is not a message of life, but of New Life. The old life must die before the word can come that awakens to this New Life

On Good Friday, the hope of the disciples did not merely die, it was put to death. He was their hope . . . their hope had died. Unlike in our liturgical cycle - Easter was not going to come around. He was their Life and their hope and He was dead. Their hope had to die, because it was inadequate, their faith had to die, for it was inadequate, their dreams had to be smashed, because they were inadequate. It was only those who lost their life whom he said would find it. Humanly speaking all the lights had gone out - ‘it was early on the morning of the first day of the week - whilst it was yet dark.’ And it was Thus He had prepared them for Easter.
    They had in their hearts and minds spent Holy Saturday in the tomb - he had died and in a real sense they had died with Him. And so they were as Ready. Ready to Hear the voice of the Risen one,for there were no other voices now. All was silent. But even so, ready as they were, it would be a a long six weeks of constant appearances and reassurance before they were ready to declare boldly and confidently ‘They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day’

But, How does that Life come alive in us?
Two of the characters from our Gospel give us each give us a clue. Firstly there is the disciple whom Jesus loved - we tend to think this is John himself, but John uses this elusive term, the disciple whom Jesus loved. This disciple outruns Peter to the tomb, he sees the folded grave clothes but does not go in - then we can imagine Peter - still full of remorse and now terrible shock desperately pushing him out of the way - seeing - but perhaps his eyes blinded still by his weeping, John uses one word for See - When the beloved disciple then goes into the tomb, he Saw and believed - John uses a different word - he Sees beyond the empty tomb - he sees beyond the evidence to its meaning - but as yet they did not understand.

The beloved disciple can stand here for the Church. In our failure to believe - in our slowness to understand, she leads us for six weeks through account after account of the resurrection, gently teaching us as Christ did his disciples the Reality of the Resurrection. When we as individuals struggle to come to terms with this all, it is the Church in faith which holds us, and leads us through the six weeks of Easter, from the darkness of this first morning into ever increasing light.

How does this Life come alive in us?
. . . then there is Mary Magdalene - The first Apostle - the First witness to the resurrection. She sees the Lord but does not recognize him - no but she Hears him. As Lazarus had lain in the tomb and been awoken by The Voice - that called him by name, Lazarus - Come Out!,  Mary too comes to life and faith by hearing one word - she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).

How is this Easter Joy awoken in us? We diligently search the scriptures thinking that in them we may find life - we from our modern ever so well informed, and at times deeply skeptical viewpoint look at these ancient texts and think that this is just to incredible for words - we want a story we can make sense of - we want some neat proofs that we will believe - How can we believe? How did MAry believe??
    Why do so many millions now believe? ‘Mary!’- ‘Rabbouni!! Why do so many believe Because down through two thousand years, the Risen Lord has spoken their name, Mary, Simon, Cornelius, Saul, Irenaeus, Felicity, Monica, Augustine, Benedict, Clare, Francis, Theresa, Ignatius, Martin, John, Theresa, Dietrich, Dorothy, and millions upon millions more - like a Great Wave of Life and Faith - He has come out from the tomb - he has been calling us by name out from ours - Come out and Live!!

Rabbouni! Teacher - Lord - I have seen the Lord - I was in the dust of death and he has called my name! He is Alive - Life HAs triumphed over death - Death is defeated My Lord Lives - Our Lord Lives!

Christ is Risen - Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia
And the church responds in faith ‘He is risen indeed!’ Alleluia, Alleluia Alleluia

May we by the Grace of God follow this journey through Easter with ever increasing Joy and Hope and Life and may we hear His voice ever and Ever louder - till it is as clear to us as it was to those first disciples - and now as with those first disciples on the road to Emmaus - may he be known to us in the breaking of the bread.           Amen

Sermon for Sunday March 18th - Romans 5:1-11

Sermon for Sunday March 18^th 2012 – EVENSONG

Exodus 6:2-13

Romans 5:1-11

(LINK TO AUDIO RECORDING)

Hope and Life

“I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.” ’ Moses told this to the Israelites; but they would not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.”

My subject this evening is Christian Hope and the Christian Life. But we have to begin I think with this reading from Exodus. God has heard the cry of the Israelites in their harsh oppression and remembering his Covenant, his unbreakable Oath – Whilst we think of Love as the Pre-eminent aspect of God, the Scriptures speak more of his Faithfulness. God is Faithful, for as St Paul says, he cannot deny himself. To be faithless is to deny your very being. – and so God in his Covenant faithfulness has decided to rescue His people from Egypt. To claim them for himself.

And he tells Moses to go and tell the people, “but they would not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.”  They were so down they did not even have the energy to look up – they had nothing to hang their hope on. How on Earth could this be so . . . and to be frank who can blame them. For when We speak of hope, we have something similar in mind. I hope something will come along – I hope the weather will be better tomorrow – I hope aunty Jean will get well soon. But if we ask Why do you hope these things, then we have to say  - nothing really, I just hope they are true. And this is as far as it probably could be all that the Israelites could mean by hope also – a vague wish, based on?? Well based on very little, indeed based on the words of a strange God whom they did not know – Remember when they Cried out in their oppression, they didn’t cry out to God, they just Cried out! Based on the words of a strange God through the mouth of one of their own who had grown up in the Egyptian court and then got them all into trouble by killing an Egyptian and trying to set himself up as some kind of saviour and then fleeing who knew where to suddenly arrive back and say “God has been speaking to me’ and all the while they have been whipped and driven and tormented and forced to make bricks without straw. A labour camp of the worst sort, in all but name a Death Camp. Humanly speaking their situation in hopeless. I doubt any one of them listened to Moses, and they certainly didn’t pay any attention. Imagine being Moses and having to declare it!

No they didn’t even have the vague wish kind of hope for there was Nothing to base it on . . . which brings us to Christian Hope and one of the most densely argued sections of St Paul’s densely argued letter to the Romans. This reading is So significant that it is unusually read here at Evensong as Well as being part of the three year lectionary cycle – but it is not easy. I remember early in my years as Vicar in Hellifield. There was a diminutive lady in the congregation, a widow by the name of Barbara. And She was on the rota for readers and had this passage to read. And she came to me afterwards and said – I haven’t a clue what any of that meant! And it was at once highly understandable, and at the other deeply regrettable, for in some sense if we don’t get what this is about, we really don’t understand Christian faith or life at all.

Paul here in these carefully worded 11 verses in a very real sense tells us the Good News. He speaks of the past and the future and their concrete relationship to the present. It is masterful theology. And it reveals a staggering Hope about which there is Nothing Vague – and the Extraordinary nature of the Christian Life. So if you will permit me – I shall take a few minutes now to unpack what he says.

Verse 1 (Yes I am Really going to unpack this :) ) Therefore since we ARE justified by faith – ‘Therefore’ reminds us that we are in Chapter 5 and Paul has spent much of the preceding 2 chapters proving that if we put our Trust in God, abandoning trust in anything or anyone else, then That is sufficient to put us right with Him – we are Justified by Faith, by placing our trust in him.

Well what is the consequence of doing that? When we let go of everything else and trust God instead, ‘we have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’. Christ in his death and resurrection has brought us access into a profound relationship with God – he has opened the door to the Rich Life of God and we enter into that Peace through Faith  - this Grace in which we now stand Vs 2 – And then Paul makes an Extraordinary claim and it is the first mention of that word Hope –at Peace with God, Made right with Him, Standing in Grace, we boast in our Hope of sharing in the glory of God!! We boast in our Hope of Sharing in God’s Very Life!! This is Extraordinary and we may well say hope in what?? Paul, you have gone to far!! But Notice that this is not a baseless hope – this is no vague wish, for Already God has acted – Our position for hope is Not like that of the Israelites in Egypt who are addressed before God rescues them. No! It is based on what God has Already done. The security of hope is the Past even of the death and resurrection of Jesus. So our Hope, our Faith has a Solid Past foundation upon which we base our Future Hope. And because it is Such a Breathtaking foundation, it gives rise to a similarly breathtaking Hope. That we might share in the glory of God.

Then Paul changes gear – having given the foundation for the Future hope – he then speaks of how we Now enter into that Hope.. throughout Lent I have been teaching on the Christian Practices – if you like the Essence of the Christian Life an I have said over and over again, that that is no more or less than entering into the very Life of God. We enact His Generosity, His Love, His forgiveness, His Hospitality, His Life. (details on my website). In other words that we begin to live the future reality in the present, based on the firm foundation of the past.

And here we see how clearly we enter the life of God – for we boast in our sufferings – for the Life of God is Suffering in the World, we can only walk in this Life following our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ – there is no other way. If we Trust in God, we Will find ourselves in conflict with All that is not God, BUT say Paul, Suffering produces Endurance – endurance character and character Hope. As I have been teaching these past few weeks, if we push past that first terrible resistance to Living out the life of God, we discover the Life of God available to us. The more we enter in the more we know of this Life of God in us and So we Grow in that life, Suffering, Endurance (God Endures though all the mountains are worn away, He endures), Character (the fullness of God’s being more and more revealed as we walk in this path, Growing in Love and Generosity and Forgiveness) and finally  - there is is again Hope. We Work from Hope founded upon the work of Christ – to Hope –the End is found in the beginning. You see we begin with this seed of Hope – given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and Like All Life – it produces of its Own – we Grow in Hope.

And now Paul moves again, from the future Hope to its breaking into the present. ‘Verse 5’ ‘And Hope does not disappoint us because God’s Love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit that has been given us.

This is SO important. The Holy Spirit – the very Life of God is given to us. His Love poured into our hearts and Out into the world. In other words, this future hope  - this scandalous Hope that we will share in the Glory of God – share in His Life is found Present Expression as he shares his life with us here and Now.

The Hope is based on the Past work of Christ – it has a firm foundation – as we step out in faith, through suffering, endurance and character grow which produce More Hope and that Hope is already Now partially realized. So our hope is not only now based on what God has done pouring his life out for us Christ in the past but also his continual pouring out of his life for us in our present experience. We are Tasting the future.

The Christian Life is Based on the past, future directed and Present enacted – our Vocation, our Call it to live out the Life of the future, Here and Now. This is the Fruit of Faith.

So Paul makes this stunning and Wonder Full case for a Concrete Hope, Based Solidly on the Past work of Christ – Growing as we enter into the Life of God ourselves as Christ’s disciples – Given Present re-inforcement by God Living in us now by His Spirit.

And then he leads us in a meditation of the wellspring of all of this. Bringing us back again to the work of Christ on the Cross, this Spring of Life. Paul wants us to Wonder more and More. If you are at all unsure of God’s Love for you –meditate on this. For it was while we were still weak, Then at the Best time Christ died for the ungodly (Not the immoral, by the way, not the moral, no he died for those who were without God – God’s Love does not depend on us except in that we are far from him – that is the basis of His love – his love is poured out for those who do not believe – those like the Israelites who did not, who could not listen, because of their broken Spirit, and their cruel slavery. God proves his love for us that while we were yet sinners – while we had nothing in us to commend ourselves, like the utterly unlovely, That is the measure of God’s Love. Like the Father loving the Prodigal, Wasting his love on the wastrel. God’s Love is breathtaking for it Loves where NONE is shown in return. THAT is why we may have So much confidence in the Love of God precisely because it does NOT depend in anyway upon us..

And How Much that One fact can transform our Christian Life – that God’s Love is shown to us for no reason that we have anything to do with except our mere existence. Truly Unconditional Love. And So Paul now works up to his final Crescendo. Having Spoken of the past work being the Sure ground of our faith, he has Shown Just how wonderful that work is – if the death of Christ for you is Not enough – just consider that it is Utterly Gratuitous!! ‘Much more surely then’ he goes on, Much more surely that we have been put right by his blood , shall we be saved from the wrath of God’ Because this whole Salvation is an act of Gratuitous Love. There is NO basis for Fear.

For if while we were yet his enemies Christ died for us – the wrath of God is shown to his enemies, YET he takes the wrath upon himself, absorbing in himself for the sake of Love – If God makes his enemies his children through the death of Jesus, HOW much more surely will we be Saved by His Life.

In other words, Having started out on this journey into the life of God, we discover we are given his Life that we might more fully live the Salvation Life – which is of course the Life of Christ and so we rejoice, boast, glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Karl Barth in his magisterial commentary on the Epistle to the Romans puts it like this ‘When once again people have God’ No longer without God and without Hope ‘they have all the fullness of life and its blessedness’ . . . because through the death of Christ, they are now filled with the future of God’

This is our Hope, This is our Life. The Past work of Christ – the present Life of God poured into us by the Holy Spirit as we live both In and towards the Glorious future of God.

Amen