Second Sunday of Easter John 20:19-end Acts 4:32-35‘With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.’The book of the Acts of the Apostles gives us all manner of evidence to the resurrection and in a sense continues Jesus’ ministry on earth, even after he has gone up to heaven, through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we are called to do likewise. We have just celebrated Easter, that most important moment in the history of salvation, when Jesus was raised from the dead and opened for us the gate to heaven. Easter is the story of hope; the story of life; and the story of love. Our faith may at times be tested but we always come back to that undeniable mystery of God’s work of salvation, culminating in the evidence of the empty tomb.Thomas, one of the disciples and called ‘the twin’, had not been there when the disciples first saw the good news of Jesus when he appeared among them. That made him cynical, not willing to believe or not allowing himself to accept what seemed impossible, lovely though it would be if it were true! And so Jesus came again, a week later, standing among them, although the doors were shut, it says in John 20. Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for his lack of faith. Instead, he simply speaks to him, saying, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ It doesn’t say that Thomas actually did what Jesus told him; he might not have needed a physical touch after all but even if he did, he came to believe, saying, ‘My Lord and my God!’When Thomas doubted the accounts of the other disciples, not willing to be taken in by their enthusiasm, Jesus encouraged him to really hear and see the truth. It enables Thomas to then indeed see and address Jesus as God. Now, nothing more was necessary for Thomas to make that leap in his understanding of who Jesus really was and still is. Do we sometimes doubt? I bet we do. That’s not unnatural but it is a moment to work out again what the evidence is saying and to be encouraged and reassured about the work and the love of God in and through his Son Jesus. In the book of Acts, amazing things continued to happen, as the Church, in the shape of the disciples and new followers of Christ, came to grow and spread the news that God had stepped in, had taken on human flesh in order to recreate us. For that is what it was all about: the resurrection was a recreation. As a redeemed people, we are now able to really be as God always intended us to be, through faith in his Son Jesus, the living Word. Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ We may sometimes feel that we are at a disadvantage, living so long after the event. But that should not hinder us at all. The death and resurrection of the Son of God was for all and for all time. And we can ‘hear and see’ through the work of the Holy Spirit, who came to help us do just that: to show us the glory of God so that we too may be saved. Is it still a mystery? Yes. Is it still the most wonderful news? Yes. Is it the most precious and life-giving gift? Yes! It may not always be easy to take a leap of faith, but if we do, we find that we too are able to say, ‘My Lord and my God!’, knowing that we have finally come home, safe in the care of our Saviour. Amen.
Easter Day Mark 16:1-8 Isaiah 25:6-9 Acts 10:34-43Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!The acclamation of the good news of the resurrection is ringing around the globe today – in different languages – in all churches and places where Christians meet. And what a wonderful bit of good news it is! Of course, we have known about this for a very long time already, about 2,000 years – but it never fails to move at the celebration of Easter, when we commemorate the wonderful event of that first Easter morning, when the tomb in which Jesus had been laid after his death was found to be empty. The witnesses to the resurrection were recorded in the accounts of the Gospels; the first being women which adds to the authority of the recordings by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Women, as we know, were not regarded as reliable in those days, but their words were backed up by the men who came to investigate and other appearances of Jesus – too numerous to count – passed on the truth of this remarkable event to many others. The life of the Church, then formed according to the directions that Jesus had given, began properly and has been a witness to the work of God, not just on that occasion, but ever since, through the Holy Spirit. For God’s plan did not end with the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, but it continued to have an enormous effect in the world, through the work and witness of the third member of the Holy Trinity: the Holy Spirit. We shall come to talk about him later, when we focus on him at Pentecost.The readings that we are looking at today apart from the Gospel passage, are Isaiah 25 and Acts 10. In these, we are finding prophecy before ‘all this happened’ and the effects and confirmation of the resurrection afterwards in Peter’s words about the remarkable work of the Lord. They are the sandwich that holds the Gospel message together, as it were. The promise that God will ‘swallow up death’ and ‘wipe away the tears from all faces’ in Isaiah – and the reference to the prophets who ‘testify about [Jesus] that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name’ in Acts. So what is the most wonderful story ever told in the resurrection and what followed?Well, I am reminded of the old way of taking photographs, before digital cameras took over. The use of film that had to be exposed to light so that it would capture an image in fact. This film was a negative of the image that then had to be developed with the use of certain chemicals (don’t ask me about the details, I am just giving an outline here) so that a ‘positive’ of the image could be printed which was the actual ‘photograph’. I hope I am explaining it adequately enough – at least those who were born before the digital age will remember. And I like to see this as a metaphor of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to save us from the power of sin and death, by dying on the cross and rising to life on the third day. For we in effect were ‘negatives’ in the ways bad things influenced our lives. We were not the real image of true human beings as God had intended for us to be. So we needed to be exposed to the light, the true light of Christ, in order to ‘develop’ into the positive that God wanted for us. In Jesus, the negative becomes the positive; hate turns into love, hurt is healed, our cry of pain is turned into joy. Our tears are wiped away by the very hand of God, who ‘did not want to let go the work of his hands’ and who loves us with an everlasting love. And that is good news!Alleluia. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!Happy Easter
Palm Sunday Mark 11:1-11 Philippians 2:5-11When you follow the news – as I’m sure you do – you will have noticed that many countries are holding general and presidential elections this year. In some, the outcome is clear even before they are held, and the outcome is not necessarily a democratic one… The vox populi (the voice of the people) is not always heard or reflected in the outcome of the elections. In preparation for elections, there are hustings and the like; debates possibly on television between candidates, and an attempt of political parties and candidates to make their points as strongly and as convincingly as possible. The party programme promises that are made, are not always realistic and it is up to the people to make up their mind about them. They have to ask themselves if the direction that the candidates are saying they want to take is the right one for them and the country. Whatever the result of the election is, there will be some who are happy about it and others who are not. Time then has to tell whether the whole thing is beneficial or a total disaster… In today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel, though, it is exactly the vox populi that is heard. There isn’t an election as such, but the people have made up their mind about the change of direction that should be taken – and they are seeing Jesus as the answer to many of the questions that they have. The passage in Mark’s Gospel is painting the picture of a messianic demonstration. Jesus is entering into Jerusalem, the capital city, in fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah, of a king riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9-10). The choice of a donkey indicates peaceful intentions, where a war-horse and –chariot would have a different tone. It had quite an effect: ‘many people spread their cloaks on the road, others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting: ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’ They are words from Psalm 118 (vv 25-26), giving thanks for victory over Israel’s enemies, and that was sung at the Passover Festival. So to all intents and purposes, we can see how the people had ‘cast their vote’ for Jesus, and were already celebrating the victory that they wanted him to win. They were correct in seeing in him a connection to the king of their ancestors, David; but they were wrong in the nature of his kingdom and the way Jesus would come to the throne. It would not even be the throne of the kingdom of Israel, but that of a far greater kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, established by God, not by human hands. In their attempts to change the direction of the nation, the people were saying that the status quo was wrong. They were in a state of slavery to an oppressor, Rome, and especially at the time of Passover, this would have grated. The people were to celebrate the Passover Festival, reminding them of their escape from slavery in Egypt. But their present situation was a double oppression: that of unwanted foreign rule and the wrongs of sin. Jesus was going to go to the root of their plight and deal with the way that people lived their lives. His battle was with evil itself, and his victory over the power of evil would be for the whole world and for ever. At this occasion, when Jesus is riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the people are spreading and waving their palm branches, the air was filled with hope – hope for a restored and independent new Israel, led by the anointed ‘son of David’. But a far greater Son was here, who would give an even greater hope: the hope of life itself. Jesus was and is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and the one through whom we come to the Father. Jesus is working out God’s plan for our reconciliation and redemption. This day, Palm Sunday, is only the beginning, leading to hope and life. May you enjoy this hope and this life even now. Amen.
Fifth Sunday of Lent John 12:20-33 Jeremiah 31:31-34Passiontide beginsThose of you who are botanists or keen gardeners will know this already: that the purpose of a seed is not to be kept in a jar on a shelf, but in being put into the ground, where it can sprout and grow into the plant or tree that it is designed for. For even though some plants have seeds that resemble the seeds of other varieties, a tomato seed, for example, won’t grow into a cucumber! Any seed – or bulb for that matter – that is put into the ground will only come up according to its kind, and not as something else. The soil does matter, too, of course, as I found out some years ago when I planted lots of bulbs and none came up – but that is another parable…Today is also called Passion Sunday. We are on the journey to Good Friday and Easter; each week we are drawing closer and this is reflected in the readings. The passage from John’s Gospel today makes it very clear that the focus of Jesus is on his mission to walk towards the cross for our redemption. Hence the somewhat cryptic message to the Greeks who came to see him: ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.’ It may not have been quite the response that those Greeks had counted on; but it does give us a moment to ponder the meaning of the cross. We get even more than that: Jesus – when talking to his Father – is affirmed by the Father, both for his benefit and for those who are with him. Some thought that it had thundered, and others said that an angel had spoken to Jesus. But Jesus said that it was for their benefit, when God spoke, saying that he would glorify his name through Jesus. So, the message is clear: Jesus is on his way to the cross, to fulfil his purpose, to die and to bear much fruit in us through faith. He is to be lifted high, to be shown to the world as the true King; not with a crown of gold but with a crown of thorns. It’s so very different from the way we would have thought God would do it! And yet it is the best and only way to save the people from their sins. The reading from the prophet Jeremiah talks about this: ‘The days are surely coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, even though I was their husband,’ says the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant that I will make […] after those days: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.’The failure of the knowledge of God in many parts of society is here turned into a promise of restored relationship – a new covenant between God and his people, not just for Israel alone but through Israel for the whole world. Once we did not fulfil our purpose; we were like the seeds in a jar. But now, in our redeemed state, we have died to sin and are recreated, renewed, growing into our true purpose, just as God has designed us. It takes a step of faith to allow God to take charge of our destiny; but it’s worth it, because he has decided that we are worth it. Amen.
