The Easter greeting “Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed. Alleluia” is today being spoken in churches all over the country and indeed all over the world. We join with others across the globe in proclaiming the glorious fact of Christ’s resurrection.
Contemplating this fact I took it upon myself to discover how this Easter Greeting might sound in other countries, in other languages.
In Germany one might say:
Christus ist Auferstanden! Wahrhaf auferstanden!
In Greece we would hear:
Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!
But thinking about today when we celebrate not only Easter but we welcome Francesca into the church on the occasion of her baptism, I realised that English, German, and Greek, would not be enough. As Francesca is at least half Welsh it seemed only fitting to learn the greeting in Welsh as well, so here goes: Atgyfododd Crist! Atgyfododd yn wir!
But I was also interested in a different sort of language; a language with words and with grammar but a language that you can’t hear, you can only see. Of course I am talking about sign language.
And I don’t know if you can all see what I’m doing, but for those on the North Aisle who might not have a good vantage point I have handed this knowledge on to Fr Stephen who will also be able to demonstrate:
The word Christ’ is made by pointing to where the nails would have gone into Christ’s hands:
Risen is
Indeed is
Alleluia is
Interestingly, sign language might provide us with a helpful way of thinking about our faith and the language of our faith. Sign language is a language like any other but it is unique in that, put very simply, it relies on sight not on hearing. So it has a physicality to it that the spoken language doesn’t. If we think for a moment about the word Christ’ in sign language (demonstrate) – it denotes something essential about Christ that the spoken word alone doesn’t. By pointing to where the nails went through his hands it could be seen to physically recall that scene in John’s gospel where Thomas needs to see the wounds Christ bore in crucifixion to believe that it is he.
Christ’s identity is bound up in the scars he endured through the crucifixion. It is this physicality that is so important to us when we think about the resurrection, and about how we live out the resurrected life in both word, and in the unique language of the Church, in sacrament.
Now if we think first for a moment about the gospel accounts of the resurrection we quickly find that the gospel writers were trying to describe a very physical event:
Peter and John find an empty tomb and linen clothes in place of a body- it is a physical absence that is the first sign of the resurrection. For Mary Magdalene it is in her physical encounter with the risen Christ that this absence is explained. But the risen Jesus is physically both the same and different to the pre-crucified Jesus; he has the scars which show signs of the crucifixion but somehow he is transformed so as to be unrecognisable to those who knew him, loved him and had spent the last 3 years with him. Significantly the risen Jesus is recognised in what he does, rather than simply what he says:
In Luke’s account of the resurrection two of the disciples are able to walk the 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus talking to Jesus without ever seeming to realise who he is. It is only in eating with him and in his actions, when he takes, blesses and breaks bread, that they see that this stranger is in fact no stranger at all, but Jesus Christ.
The gospel writers struggle to find a language that conveys something that is beyond human expectation or experience. In the resurrection they are talking about a reality that is so much bigger than they could describe. How do we talk about this unique event? How do we talk about a mystery which is both beyond language and which cannot be contained by language? This is a question which not only faced the early Christians but which faces us in the church today.
It might be helpful for us to think about how we all learn that first and most important lesson- who we are and where we belong. We learn these things before we have developed the capacity for spoken language. Francesca will know that she is loved by her parents Sian and Ed through the simple gestures of touch, of being held, of being fed. They in turn will no doubt have learned something about themselves; that within them are wells of love deeper than they imagined.
When Francesca grows up, touch again may communicate more powerfully than words that she is loved – the language of lovers is of course touch and physical presence.
So how do we understand the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is beyond human experience in this life, in words? Well, we do allow language to express and convey something of this mystery. Mary Magdalene recognises Jesus when he calls her by name, when he says to her Mary’.
Words are important but God has created us as physical beings. He chose to share this physical existence with us in Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. He came near to us in flesh and blood. The Eucharist which we celebrate today is the sharing of his body. Our faith isn’t something that just affects our inner mental life but is based on the fact of Christ’s physical resurrection.
Archbishop Rowan writes:
” the inner life is not capable of transforming itself. It needs the gifts that only the external life can deliver: the actual events of God’s action in history, heard by physical ears, the actual material fact of the meeting of believers where bread and wine are shared, the actual wonderful, disagreeable, impossible, unpredictable human beings we encounter daily, in and out of the church. Only in this setting do we become holy in a way entirely unique to each one of us.”
So today Francesca enters into this meeting of believers among whom she will discover her unique way of being holy.
And how do we incorporate Francesca into this body of Christ on earth? By taking the most ordinary but crucial element in life- water- and using a physical sign, an action, we baptise her into the life and body of the risen Christ. This is an action which echoes both back in time to when Jesus himself was baptised, and also forward and beyond to eternity.
So the mystery of the incarnation, that God Word became flesh, that Christ died and rose, compels us to take our physicality seriously. It also means that we take the physical welfare of others seriously. Living an Easter life means seeking both to be transformed and to transform the structures and systems which damage or compromise the physical welfare of others.
It means learning Christ’s language of love and compassion which is communicated in word, in sacrament and in action. Whether this is proclaimed in English, in Welsh or in the silence of sign language, it is the glory of Christ resurrection which has the power to transform in every age and culture and context.
Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Alleluia.
Amen