Cathedral 10.00am HC
A few years ago, a friend was searching for a crucifix as a confirmation gift. There was a selection in the jewellers. As he was browsing the plain crosses in one drawer, the young attendant said, “I think I’ve got some more down here with a little man on them.” I presume said attendant had had sixteen years of compulsory RE but clearly had missed some fairly important elements of basic Christianity. Such information wasn’t relevant to where she was in life, and other distractions took its place. I can’t be too judgmental about this. I know what it is to be absorbed in something when Deborah tells me a vital piece of information, and I just don’t register it. Adverts from the NHS warn us to be vigilant about subtle changes in our bodies because something that seems trivial might in fact prove to be something very major indeed.
The disciples did something similar. Jesus set out the events of that first Easter weekend repeatedly in advance while he was still with them, but other concerns drowned them out. They spent most of the three years of his public ministry hoping that Jesus would prove to be a military leader who would lead them in driving out their Roman oppressors. Many argue that Judas’s betrayal was a final attempt to force his hand. Matthew 16:21, quoted to the bewildered disciples in the empty tomb, is but one example. “The son of Man must be delivered over to the hand of sinners, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again”. When they heard it repeated in the tomb, they thought, “Oh yes, he did say that, although we had no idea what he was talking about!” Peter got very cross with Jesus about it at the time and was soundly rebuked.
This is missing the point, which is clear in the disciples in our reading from Luke. When the women came back to the disciples and told them about the angelic messengers, the disciples didn’t believe them because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, when he returned to the tomb afterwards, wondered to himself what had happened. These are not, at this stage, people filled with a burning conviction of the resurrection. They heard the angel’s words, but it was something so extraordinary they couldn’t believe it until Jesus appeared to them personally. Even then, the Bible records that doubts remain.
But all other explanations of the empty tomb fail. If the authorities stole the body, they had simply to produce it when the apostles began preaching resurrection as the core of their message. If the disciples stole it, it is unlikely they would have allowed themselves to be martyred for something they knew to be a lie. Given all the contemporary evidence, arguments that it’s a myth that grew up over centuries won’t wash either. It was a central part of the apostolic preaching within days of it happening.
Mark Sully, the BBC’s religion correspondent, did a series of programmes in 1996 entitled The Lives of Jesus. In the last one broadcast on December 22nd, talking to the camera, it became personal. He said, “Working as a journalist, my faith ebbed away, and I was afraid this journey would end it completely”. And talking of Jesus, he said, “he was virtually a failure in his lifetime; he taught in strange riddles. He didn’t convince his fellow Jews. He didn’t overthrow Rome. But this has forced me to the most important conclusion of all, that the hardest, most difficult part of faith, the resurrection, must have happened. If there were no miracle, there could have been no grounds for faith in his life. No resurrection; no church. What exactly happened we may never know, but if Jesus’ historical companions were ready to die in this faith, there is no historical reason why we can’t live in it either”.
Sully’s last point is the significant one. We are meant to live in the reality of this historical event that bleeds into the present and future with life-transforming power. But, like the disciples, we have our own filters that tend to blank it out. I think back on my own Christian journey from atheism to faith. I used to think that Christianity was some archaic relic divorced from the reality of the modern world. I didn’t think that because I had given it much real thought. I thought it because none of my friends or family were involved in the Church. When I first encountered Christians with a living faith that transformed their lives, I woke up and took notice. A serious investigation into the claims we Christians make about Jesus Christ and the Gospel was enough to remove that filter and open the possibility of following the risen Christ. I suspect many people are like that today. Their filter is just that they’ve never really thought about it. I suspect the shop assistant I mentioned at the beginning was like that. According to recent surveys, a perception of a lack of proof is the number one objection young people have to faith.
For others, the filter may be a distorted view of what God ought to be like, rather like the disciples did. Surely, an all-powerful deity would intervene directly more often in the terrible events of the world. Shoot down a few more Russian missiles over Ukraine; stop Hamas and Israelis murderously hating and bombing each other; rebuff a few more nationalistic myths or help people to see that the answer to injustice is not to have a bigger gun. People sometimes write to me requesting my intervention in intractable problems. In the rare cases where I do have some power to do something, I have acted. But what you tend to get is grudging compliance at best. The fundamental attitudes that led to the conflict are largely unchanged. They normally reappear through passive aggression or withdrawal and resurface later in other ways. Fundamental issues are buried or denied and not confronted. But the events of Holy Week: Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and the events that will follow: his ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost are God’s intervention. Given that the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart, we need intervention that can change hearts, not an imposition of moral conformity. This is what God does in Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Ultimately, it is likely to be much more effective in the long term in bringing in a kingdom of love and peace.
Some might deem this ‘intervention’ to be ineffectual, but even modern physiology gives us pause. My delightful grandchildren are gifted, as we all are, with what are called mirror neurons. They fire in response in imitation of what they see in others. When we are together, they are constantly repeating and exploring what they hear us say. Even adults do it all the time. So, when Jesus says, “love your neighbour as yourself”, this is a profound psychological insight. The way to turn an enemy into a friend is the way of love.
Perhaps there is also a filter that sees the resurrection as almost too good to be true. Our culture marinates us in the materialist myth that long aeons of evolution and blind chance are the sole explanation of our existence. Unable to quite live in this version of reality, we cling to the vestiges of a Christian narrative and hope for the best. But the resurrection is glorious, good news that changes everything. The voice of someone who has died and returned to us is decisive and authoritative. Jesus’ resurrection affirms the eternal value of every human life. The words of the psalmist in Ps 139 reassure us that we were created de-novo: “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together I my mother’s womb”. We are not solely the outcome of blind chance. We are loved enough to die for. We are not trapped in an endless cycle of reincarnation, condemned to repeat the same mistakes from which we cannot learn. Jesus has indeed gone to prepare a place for us; death is not the end. We have meaning; we have purpose; we have an eternal, secure future. We are secure enough for courageous love.
So, this Easter, I invite us to remove our filters of ignorance, alternative myths and a hopelessness that sees the world as irredeemable. Christ is risen. He is alive forever. He can be known. We can stake our lives on him now and trust him for eternity. As Bishop Mileto said in the second century,
“This one is ‘the Alpha and Omega,’ this one is ‘the beginning and the end,’ – the beginning which cannot be explained and the end which cannot be grasped. This one is the Christ. This one is the King. This one is Jesus. This one is the Leader. This one is the Lord. This one is he who has risen from the dead. This one is he who sits at the right hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is borne by the Father. ‘To him be the glory and the power to the ends of the ages. Amen.”