In 1977 the National Theatre staged a version of the medieval mystery plays. There were many memorable moments in the production but the one which always comes into my mind at this time of year, illustrates this morning’s reading from St Luke. Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples and they don’t know what to make of him. They are frightened and doubtful. Is he a ghost? To prove that he is not, he sits down at a table and asks for something to eat. A woman tentatively pushes a packet across the table towards him:
Lo here is meat that thou eat may,
A honey comb, the sooth to say,
And roast fish too.
To eat thereof here we thee pray
If thou canst, do.
The disciples fall silent and Jesus slowly opens the packet and tastes the fish. He eats the first mouthful very slowly, almost as though he is relearning the meaning of food and taste, unsure of himself, but then as his taste buds flick back into life he eats more quickly, forgetting the disciples who are staring at him in astonished silence. He eats some of the fish and then has a large mouthful of the honey comb. One of the women opens a thermos and pours him a drink, smiling at him hesitantly. He drinks rather too quickly and gets the hiccoughs. The sound breaks the tension and the silence and everyone laughs and surges forward. But Jesus will not stay with them.
Now I have done, ye have seen how,
Boldly eating among you now.
Henceforth steadfastly in me trow.
Such is my wish.
Then just as he leaves the stage, he turns and says:
And for you all is left enough of that fine fish.
The power of that scene in the theatre comes from the length of the silence as the disciples watch Jesus eating. Here is such an ordinary and simple act transformed into something entirely new and significant.
The other stories of the resurrection often have something of the same quality. The unrecgonised Jesus at Emmaus performs the simple act of blessing and breaking bread and suddenly the disciples know him. Mary sees a gardener who simply speaks her name and in that moment her tears stop flowing and she reaches out to him. On the shores of Lake Galilee, the risen Jesus lights a fire and prepares a breakfast of bread and fish for the disciples who have fished unsuccessfully all night.
There is a curious quality of everydayness to these stories. We think we know what resurrection means; it means that the creative power of God’s love cannot be defeated by injustice, savagery and death; it means that we can have hope for ourselves, that there is life with God beyond death. But how does roast fish, broken bread, gardener’s clothes and picnic breakfasts fit in with this high sounding language of belief? We have a tendency to listen to these stories and then build out of them a creed, which leaves the stories and their curious details behind. Or perhaps I should say that is what preachers and theologians tend to do. The authors of the medieval mystery plays clearly relished the stories so much that they occasionally added even more everyday details to them.
Those medieval writers were I think onto something. They didn’t sit around discussing whether or not this or that aspect of the story could be true; they didn’t write books entitled, ‘Who moved the stone?’ – turning the resurrection into a court room drama to show that the resurrection is the best attested fact in history – though modern preachers have done that too. The medieval writers kept their gaze fixed on the story – that after all is what God has given us; our only access to the resurrection is through these stories and their curious concrete details. You might say that the stories keep our feet on the ground when our heads are trying to get too quickly into the heavens.
The stories are all about the joy of an incredible reunion in a credible setting. Of course the disciples believed in the resurrection as something – they didn’t know quite what – which would happen they didn’t know quite when. They were not prepared – even by the teaching of Jesus – for a resurrection here and now. They also believed that the resurrection would mean the end of life as we know it, when God would put everything right again for all faithful Jews. They never dreamed that resurrection could mean putting things right again at breakfast.
Those medieval playwrights were onto something, because they tried to put their audiences inside the stories; they invited the audience to breakfast with Jesus and the disciples. They put them in the middle of the doubt and wonder and joy of an incredible reunion. Which is where at Easter we ought to be, imagining it all for ourselves. To hold in mind someone you love is not easy. The idea of someone you love easily fades. Even when you see them again after a long time, you might wonder whether you really know them. It is only when you see them eating just a little too quickly because that’s the thing they like most, that you grasp again the reality of the one you love. It is because of the spoken name from under the gardener’s hat, the broken bread, the cooked breakfast, that the Easter joy becomes palpable. And that is what Easter is truly about, not only belief but joy. If you think you believe but do not sense the joy, you have missed the moment. Because it is only out of that Easter Joy that anything was achieved. Mary runs to tell the disciples because she was overjoyed. Peter swims impetuously to the shore because he senses the possibility of joy. And the church is founded on that joy; creeds came afterwards. The creed is like the reliquary built to house and protect the precious memento of the saint. Belief is the form of words constructed to enshrine and protect the original, palpable joy. And the church cannot grow unless we can see through the words to the joy that originated belief. For humanity is more itself, human beings are more humane, when joy is the fundamental thing in them. And the church cannot grow unless we remind ourselves of that first Easter joy and even from time to time, dare to feel it. As GK Chesterton, of blessed memory, memorably puts it, ‘Joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live.’ So even if we are not used to being uproarious, at least let Easter be for us the starting point of a joyful labour. Amen