Sermon by Rev Mick Norman Easter Day 4th April 2021 Mark 16:1-8……… Jesus is alive! Happy Easter everyone! It’s Easter Day today and Christians have always met, one way or another, on a Sunday for Easter celebrations. Sunday has also become the main day of the week for Christian worship ever since Jesus rose from the dead. The central Christian Easter message is “Jesus is alive!” In my sermon today I am going to look at the evidence for Jesus being alive. The first eye-witnesses and the early witnesses; the church in the first Millennium, and the church community today—-all point to Jesus being alive. We have a very good basis to believe that “Jesus is indeed alive”. Part one. The eye-witnesses. Mark 16 paints the familiar Easter Day story, one that would have been oral history for many years and then written down by the gospel writers. Here we follow the reaction of Mary Magdelene, Mary the mother of James and Salome as they find an empty tomb that first Easter morning. I wonder for a moment, have you ever lost something valuable and special to you? I remember losing my beloved red mark II Ford Escort in the 1980s. After playing in a cricket match I went back to the place where I had parked my car - and it was gone!! Amazed , bewildered, terrified,— yes I was in shock that my car had gone -probably stolen. I can understand how these disciples would be feeling at the sight of the missing body. Had it been stolen or moved? Surely not. A state of shock. Instead of finding a dead body they find “a young man dressed in a white robe…..and they were alarmed”(v 5) In 2018 Denise and I visited Jerusalem and we were able to see a tomb that was like the one described here in the gospels. It may have even been the one! I was struck by the tight space and how the disc/solid wheel like stone would have been heavy with a 6 foot diameter. What’s more these disciples were still in the early stages of grief at the death of Jesus , still trying to get their heads round that . And now the body was missing. Very shocking and upsetting. Even good news can take a few days to sink in. It is no wonder that the three disciples were in shock and that the ‘Jesus is risen’(v6) message from the man in the white robe is taking time to sink in. No surprise they flee from the tomb trembling and bewildered(v8). Whatever else we get from this reading- there is no evidence at all for the dead body of Jesus in the tomb, where it was supposed to be.… Part two is briefer. The early witnesses. We heard earlier from chapter 15 of St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, written about 55AD some 20ish years after the Easter events. Verses 5 to 8 summarise the many sightings of Jesus being alive that are recorded in the gospels; as well as Paul’s own encounter with Jesus recorded in Acts 9. Individuals and crowds claim to witness Jesus being alive again- Jesus doing the things that only Jesus can do. Part three. We have the whole history of the Christian church, all around the world. Each century Christian communities have witnessed Jesus being alive (through God’s Holy Spirit), hearing their prayers and doing wonderful things. The Christian community has been active in the face of plagues, wars, illnesses, famines, fires, floods etc bringing God’s love in practical ways to a needy world alongside the good news of Jesus. In 731AD, the Venerable Bede wrote “A history of the English church and people” covering seven centuries of wonderful and often miraculous evidence of Jesus’ life here in this country. Here are three examples of chapter headings from this book: Bishop Germanus sails to Britain with Lupus: with God’s help he quells two storms, one of the sea, the other of the Pelagian heresy (AD429) (Book1 chapter 17). Aidan’s prayers save the royal city of Bamburgh when fired by the enemy (AD651) (Book 3 chapter 16). By his prayers and blessing, Bishop John saves from death one of his clergy who had been bruised in a fall… from a horse (AD700 approx.) (Book 5 chapter 6) 1300 years later we see that Jesus is alive today. This week in our own villages, we have witnessed Jesus alive , during a pandemic, in our own communities. Hope@Easter. The Easter cards that went out with gifts in our villages were brilliant. Designed by school pupil Allie Stone of Hazel class, we see three Good Friday crosses, six butterflies, a rainbow and a mystery wall. Looking a little like a door on the outside of a church building, it also bears an uncanny resemblance to the empty tomb in Jerusalem!! So, in conclusion, ‘Jesus is alive’ according to the message that the first eyewitnesses heard at the unexpectedly empty tomb. ‘Jesus is alive’ according to the witnesses of the first Christian communities. 'Jesus is alive’ according to Ven. Bede and other church historians in each of the last twenty centuries. ‘Jesus is alive’ according to the twenty-first century church. So many reasons to believe that Jesus is alive. Yet at the end of the day, ‘Jesus is alive’ is a statement of faith. We believe it or we disbelieve it. Do we believe that Jesus is alive and makes a difference in our world today? Do we believe that Jesus hears our prayers and as a result we are changed for the better, and that lives and communities around us are also changed? We do! We do! (I sense you thinking) because ‘Jesus is alive’ ! Jesus continues to bring new hope and life in the face of a pandemic………or whatever other challenges we will face. We have many good reasons for a Happy Easter! in difficult times.
This Palm Sunday, we again live through a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Initially I struggled to relate the familiar Palm Sunday story to our situation because everything seemed so distant from our everyday experience at the moment. All this talk of crowds…….- when were you last in a crowd? These days a few families in the park seems like a big gathering! And the very special crowd on Palm Sunday gathers because a very special visitor is passing by. When did we last have a special visitor? Or any visitor at all……..? And when did we last physically gather as Christians to sing and shout praises to Jesus…apart from a brief carol service outdoors, it must be over a year ago now!! So, it is hard to relate to the experience of the disciples that first Palm Sunday. Nevertheless I still believe that we are part of the worldwide Christian ‘crowd’ of believers that gather ,when we can, to praise God. This morning, those of us able to access worship, by whatever means online, TV, radio, phone, youtube….and so on have praised God in different ways during these challenging times. This seemed like a relevant sermon theme worth expanding. However my focus changed on Thursday 25th March. Why? On Thursday I joined a Diocese retreat day led by Bishop Martyn with about 200 Leicester leaders for prayer, discussion and learning from God’s word. We focussed on how God is alongside us in suffering and how this helps cultivate humility in our lives. It was a good day , but a little weird having a retreat at your own dining table without going anywhere! Nothing especially new for me, but a refreshing day with helpful reminders of God’s presence with us. On Friday morning I came back to our Palm Sunday reading with new eyes! The thing that stood out to me so clearly in the reading from Mark 11 was God’s abundant provision. For our churches today this resonates so well with our Hope@Easter project. As we follow Jesus here in our villages we are seeing God provide provision and hope for many at Easter time. 400 Easter eggs delivered last week. 16 huge hampers with Co-op vouchers and just under 70 flower/card gifts ready to be delivered to our villages tomorrow. A last minute addition was to send 55 bunches of daffodils to all the school staff to say thank you for their amazing efforts this term. By divine providence these were given out on Tuesday 23rd, which turned out to be the national day of reflection - marking a year since lockdown one. I’ve already had an email addressed to myself and Rev Tim Woolley, Methodist church minister: Hi Mick and Tim, All the staff at Sharnford C E Primary School would like to send their thanks to the Churches of Sapcote and Sharnford for the bunches of daffodils and card. We all really appreciate you thinking of us. Have a good Easter. Best wishes Sharnford school staff. So how does our Bible reading from Mark 11 encourage us in this kind of ministry? Vv2-6 Miraculous provision by Jesus. A kind of first century new car! Jesus needs transport for his journey into Jerusalem. Jesus tells the disciples how to find the donkey and uses it for his purposes. For us, it seems that Jesus is guiding us to partnerships with other churches, the schools, the Co-op, the parish councils, garden centres, the Hinckley Foodbank to use these resources for Jesus purposes. Vv7-8 Abundant provision for Jesus. Not just a colt/donkey. We see here so many extras! Cloaks for a saddle, a red carpet of cloaks and branches for the special visitor. All important preparations in anticipation of, and imminent arrival of Jesus , this very special visitor. In our situation it has been amazing to see how a simple idea of hampers at Christmas expanded to so much provision this easter- Easter eggs for 400 school children , food provision and vouchers for families in need, card and flowers for those on their own or struggling, daffodils for school staff. So much beyond the original idea because God’s provision is abundant. v9&10 The result. Shouts and chants to Jesus. Praising God. Often crowds have a life of their own. Some in the crowd are praising Jesus for all the good things. Some maybe praising Jesus even though they know Jesus may soon suffer. Some just swept along by the crowd as others shout out the praises. The result-? An excitement, noise, a carnival atmosphere as Jesus rides into the city. I hope that we too can praise Jesus because of the wonderful ways God provided on that Palm Sunday and because we are getting some glimpses of wonderful ways in which God provides today. I’ve spotted a couple of other examples of God’s provision recently. First, if you would like a palm cross, you can pick up one outside Sapcote Methodist Church. We have a couple on display in the Rectory. Second, young people in our online congregation raised over £1200 for Tearfund’s work in Yemen. Looking at our 2020 accounts for both churches God has provided for all our needs - including provision for a £30,000 building project at All Saints church building last Summer. However, we must also remember that Jesus had to undergo great suffering in Jerusalem and that his journey was heading towards death on a cross. We know, as Christians, that praising God is important in the hard times as well as the good times. Ultimately, we praise Jesus because Jesus is worthy to be praised. Whether we are experiencing miraculous provision, or a bad hair day- we are still called to worship Jesus. Job is an example of someone who experienced great hardship and great happiness. He was able to praise God in the midst of both. St Paul also knew how to praise God in need and in plenty. We too are called to praise God in the best of times and in the worst of times. In three weeks time we will be opening up our buildings for physical worship together. We will try to Zoom our 11am worship from All Saints. So, there will be a choice of joining worship in the building (without singing initially), joining at home and sing—-or neither. As we open up again let us also try to encourage one another and others to keep worshipping God, one way or another. We are very likely to be losing some people who were with us at the start of 2020-so let’s all make an effort in encouraging one another to return to Sunday worship. Let’s all continue to resolve to praise God in the good times and the bad times. Today, we can all be very grateful for God’s special provision, and especially for Hope @Easter. Let us praise God in the best way that we are able to this Palm Sunday and this Holy Week.
