Resurrection people - Easter III

Given at S Paul, Deptford, Easter III 2018

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

It’s a very great pleasure to preach to you today – many thanks to Fr Paul for the invitation.

And what a set of readings on which to preach! Easter probably feels quite a long time ago to many of us today – all the penitentiary mood of Lent evaporating in a joyful Easter weekend, and then ‘back to normal’ – back to work or school, and back to grind of daily living. With air strikes in Syria, an ever-rising violent crime rate in London, the world doesn’t feel quite like the world of the resurrection we are told to expect.

Of course, in the Revelation of St John we hear all about the terrors and disasters that have to come before the end of time, but looking at the world through the lens of the past two thousand years, the current behavior of the human race looks more like ‘more of the same’ than anything exceptional. Humans can’t, it seems, just get on – we can’t behave in a way that doesn’t inevitably lead to more war, more famine, more hatred, more self-seeking, more fear.

And I suppose when we look at our own lives, are we much better? We might not be responsible for the great suffering and sadness on the industrial scale seen in parts of the Middle East, and indeed by political decisions made here in Europe, but in our own small way, do we live up to the vision presented to us by today’s Epistle – do we really believe ourselves to be ‘children of God’? St John makes it very clear – ‘that is what we are’.

A particular problem of Anglicanism, although in an ecumenical gesture I’m quite happy to find this fault in other Christian churches too(!), is that our faith often has too much of the Lent about it, and not quite enough of the Easter. It’s certainly not difficult to find those parts of our lives and of humanity that smell of evil and wrongdoing – and of course we should repent of those and try to do better. But the message, and overwhelming joy, of Easter is one that we sometimes leave a little on the shelf – that we seem to leave out because it’s all a little bit embarrassing getting too cheerful about things, and because of that sense, bred into most of us, that frankly looking too happy or joyful about religion isn’t really what Anglicans do.  We’re good on the doom and gloom – and we’re particularly good at saying sorry, as indeed anyone who spends ten seconds in a supermarket queue will know. We don’t necessarily mean it, and we don’t necessarily do it for a purpose, but we say it – almost constantly.  

Our predecessors in the faith, the Jewish people, spent a lot of their time being sorry too – and had long and intricate festivals and feasts to transmit this sorrow to God and try to make amends. They offered sacrifices to God, in particular on the yearly Day of Atonement, and through these sacrifices the ‘sins of the world’ were wiped away. Year by year, the High Priest would enter the temple on Yom Kippur, unusually entering right into the Holy of Holies, and sprinkle the blood of two goats to atone for and take away the sins of the people. There were a whole host of particular regulations to make this sacrifice fit for God, and afterwards the people would be cleansed of their sin for another year. Today’s psalm bears witness to this  - verse 5 says ‘Offer the appointed sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord’.

The difference, of course, between then and now is what we celebrated just a few weeks ago – the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ – the Son of God, made flesh, dead, buried and risen.

To put it another way – the ‘sacrifice’ that the psalm speaks about - Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, without guilt and without blame, was raised high on the cross, and in his self-giving love made a new covenant with God on our behalf. And all that is right and proper, but that is not the end of the story. Because at Easter, God glorified Jesus, and in the process He changed everything.

Easter is not just one of a whole bunch of other festivals – it is the festival of festivals – in fact, every Sunday is a foreshadowing and re-celebration of Easter Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection. Not that long ago, it was very trendy to refer to the resurrection as a metaphor – that Jesus wasn’t literally raised from the dead, but that God somehow made people a bit more cheerful by making them feel that they weren’t alone any more and in a vague sense that ‘love conquers all’. Now that is true in part, of course – but it’s rather a paltry thing for the first disciples to be killed for and for the Christian faith to be built on. It’s rather like going to a museum and staying in the gift shop.

Today’s readings blow that theory out of the water. Jesus literally appears to His disciples, and has breakfast with them. ‘Have you got anything to eat’, He says, before wolfing down some broiled fish. Yet like the liberal theologians of the nineteen eighties, like many around the world still today, and dare I say, even like us sometimes, the disciples find it difficult to believe and bewildering to understand. ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?’ says Jesus. St Luke tells us that ‘in their joy’ they are still disbelieving! I’m not sure that Anglicans really do ‘joy’ but we certainly do disbelieving!

We even hear St Peter telling the crowds off in our first reading today, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this’!

And what Peter has to say is true, both to the Israelites that he is addressing, but also to himself and the apostles, and the disciples through all generations, including we motley band at St Paul’s Deptford – ‘I know that you acted in ignorance – but the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out’.  And St Peter is simply doing what Our Lord tells us to do in the Gospel – that ‘repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in Jesus’ name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’

‘You are witnesses of these things’, says Jesus. Jesus, who has just had breakfast, who is not a ghost, who is flesh and blood – but flesh and blood transformed in resurrection. And St John tells us what being witnesses means for us – he tells us that ‘when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’.

Let’s just think on that for a moment – God, in Jesus, resurrected and eating with His disciples, tells us that we are his witnesses – that is, martyrs, in the truest sense – and St John tells us that simply by being witnesses, we will be transformed in resurrection glory. That’s quite a lot to take in on a Sunday morning! And even more, by being witnesses here and now, that means that we are transformed - here and now – into a people of the resurrection.

We, then, are witnesses to the resurrection, and all it means. We are witnesses to new life, to transformed life, to Jesus as true God and true man. The Glory of God is man fully alive, as St Irenaeus said – and here He is – Jesus, humanity fully alive. And Jesus making us – humanity - fully alive. ‘Peace be with you’, He says – a phrase needed more than ever in our broken world, ‘repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in the name of the Messiah’.

So, if we are to take our faith seriously, and live out the Gospel life, we must bask in the joy and hope of the resurrection, and live as its witnesses. When St Paul talks of faith, hope and love, we see all of these wrapped up in the reality of the risen Son of God. Faith in Him and his promises; hope in a better future and forgiveness of sins; love in the model of Christ crucified and risen.

And as witnesses of these things, we are called to repentance, promised forgiveness, and we take on the responsibility of being witnesses.

This repentance isn’t a turning backwards, it is a turning towards God – opening ourselves up to His forgiveness and trusting in His promises. It is a surrendering to His grace and a gentle trusting in His love. It is not just a saying sorry, but a saying sorry with a purpose – a determination to realign ourselves with God’s mercy and plan, by fully surrendering to His grace in our lives.

Exult and be glad, as Pope Francis told the catholic faithful in his exhortation this week. Be holy in your daily lives, and as Francis puts it pithily – to be holy, be kind. And this is where our responsibility as witnesses to the resurrection comes in – because Christianity is not a religion of gnosis – of secret knowledge – and nor is it a religion of self-improvement resting on our own laurels. It is a religion that is infused with the resurrection life, with the resurrection grace, in whose stream we are called to get caught up, and which requires of us certain things. There is little point in us ostensibly celebrating resurrection life whilst at the same time refusing to live within it, exploiting creation and exploiting our fellow humanity. We are hardly witnesses of the resurrection when we witness in word but not deed. We repent – turn to God – in order to realign our entire lives, and not just our thoughts, to Him, and to allow ourselves to be swept up in his plans for us.

So, Easter is not over, and even when Pentecost comes and goes, we must remain an Easter people, repentant witnesses of new life. In Christ shall all be made alive, says St Paul – and as witnesses to The Faith, we are to be alive ourselves, and in being so, we will spill that life and love into the lives of those we meet. That is mission – and that is the start of conversion – to witness to the glory of God’s resurrection – and we are all called to witness here, and now, in Deptford and beyond, in who we are, in what we say, and in what we do. And from there to proclaim His death and resurrection, repentance and forgiveness in His name.

‘Beloved, we are God’s children now – we are witnesses of these things’.

In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.