John 20: 1-18
When we gathered here on Christmas Day we pondered the child Jesus in the manger. Today—Easter Sunday—we see that child grown to his full stature. Over the weeks and months we have learned of his life—the teaching and preaching, the miracles of healing and restoration. And over these three solemn days we have witnessed his betrayal, his punishment, his crucifixion and death, followed by his triumphant bursting from the tomb. On this most blessed morning we encounter the Risen Lord, who in a fitting acclamation we call the ‘most glorious Lord of lyfe’. This title—Lord of Life—will be our guide to ponder this extraordinary day in the Christian faith.
One of the great misconceptions about the Resurrection is that it was just a consequence or byproduct of another act. That God granted the Resurrection to Jesus as a kind of reward. By this account it seems that the Resurrection does little more than bring humanity back to where it was before the Fall, as if in some kind of return primal origins or—in the language of poetry— a ‘return to Eden’. But somehow that doesn’t quite ring true. Would God endure the constraint in the Incarnation and the suffering on the Cross—just to put us back to where we were at the start? It doesn’t really suggest that God is victorious over sin and death; it sounds more like He’s just held the line against it and managed to re-establish order.
If we were to view the Resurrection this way we would be separating it from the Incarnation and the Crucifixion. These three—Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection—can’t be separated because each contributes something unique to the mystical teaching of the Church. (And that is why I always start my sermon on Easter Sunday by talking about Christmas Day—the wood of the manger is the wood of the Cross). We should hold them together: lose one and you lose something intrinsic to the faith; emphasise one to the detriment of another and the faith is distorted. Christianity isn’t just about getting you right with God. Now, of course that is part of it—there is no mystical vision, no union with God without it—but it’s not just about that.
Let’s think about the Incarnation. In the life of Jesus God further ennobled a humanity that already had great nobility because it was made in God’s image. The divine image is greatly obscured by sin but it is not effaced by it. In Jesus—in the Incarnation—all our humanity it brought into the divine life itself. Let’s think about the Crucifixion. Jesus—obedience to God’s call—gave up his life freely to
defeat not only personal sin but that inherited, societal sin we call original;—that in his dying agony, suffering was brought within the life of God in a way that makes possible its redemption.
And then we come to the extraordinary event that is the Resurrection. As one theologian comments by it ‘creation is reconstituted’, in that the Resurrection is the first instance of God’s new creation. Seen this way, the end of point of humanity is not a return to some lost Eden: it is an advance to a new world full of glory and united with the God who we will know even as we are known (cf. 1 Corinthians 13. 12). But there is more: the whole cosmos will be renewed because through Christ all things are reconciled to God. Again St Paul tells us: through Christ God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1. 20).
And the words of the Risen Christ given in a vision, that we encounter in Revelation remind us: See, I am making all things new (Revelation 21. 5). This is the vision. This is the promise: not just me right with God;—not just you and me together following God as faithfully as we can. No, much more than that;—more than us;—more than we can ever imagine. All things—all things made new through the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The whole cosmos re-created and—in it—we are united to God and given an eternal vision of the Divine life itself.
This is what we celebrate this morning. Not just a resurrection, but a new creation. The door to life can never be closed for the ‘most glorious Lord of lyfe’ himself has opened a new and living way for us (Hebrews 10.20). This Easter Day, I encourage you to embrace the hope that the Church offers so that you may follow our Risen Lord in the promise that all things are to be made new.
Happy Easter – He is Risen!
He is Risen indeed, Alleluia…