Easter Hope

Sermon for Easter 2009

Alleluia, alleluia. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Easter is about hope. And I’m sure many of you here today have probably heard sermons about hope on Easter Sunday. Things like the return of the flowers and of the plants and of the leaves on the trees now that it’s spring. And nice sayings such as “hope springs eternal in the human breast.”  I myself have often said about such things in Easter sermons.

We here at St. John’s, and the entire Anglican Catholic Church of which we are part, believe in, teach, and proclaim the actual, literal, physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. For us, the resurrection of Christ is neither a myth, nor a hallucination, nor a “spiritual event.” Nor is it a “conjuring trick with bones,” as one heretical bishop of the Church of England stated some years ago. Rather, it is for us, as it has been for faithful Christians throughout the centuries, a historical fact that took place exactly as the Gospel writers say it did.

Now, as to how God brought about this amazing event, and the exact nature of the resurrection body that Jesus had, we don’t know. These are mysteries.

The Gospel writers (such as St. Luke) tell us that the first reaction of those who first learned of the resurrection of Jesus, such as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, who came to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ dead body, was that of amazement, trembling, and fear. Not joy and delirious happiness or ecstasy, which is what a mass hallucination most likely would produce, but fear.

Why do you suppose they felt fear? Because they knew that something truly earth-shattering had happened. They knew that God truly had broken into their lives and into their world. And they began to realize the shocking truth that Jesus truly was who he had said he was: the Son of God. And that all that Jesus had taught and said was true.

I don’t know: perhaps before the resurrection they thought what Jesus had taught and demonstrated through his miracles and healings was really wonderful and remarkable, but that was pretty much the end of it. But now, with the raising of Jesus from the dead, they could see that it was more than that. They could see that what Jesus had taught them was not only true, but demanded a personal reaction and decision on their part. Because the resurrection proved that God had indeed broken through the merely “spiritual” or ethical realm, right into their physical reality.

The decision they now had to make was to acknowledge the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth and to follow him as the Lord and Savior of the universe. Their lives could no longer be the same.

I think this is very similar to what happens to so many of us today. We hear the story of Jesus and we think, “that’s a really wonderful story. What a remarkable man of God this guy was and what beautiful, if impossible, moral teachings he gave.” And then we go right back to living our lives in the same way that we always have.

But if we can once get our minds around the fact that Jesus truly and actually and physically rose from the dead, then we’re going to have to start taking this whole Christianity thing seriously. And that means that we’re going to have to make some changes in the way we live and behave and think and feel in our actual, day-to-day lives. And the fact of the matter is, that’s hard. It’s risky and dangerous. And the natural human tendency is to avoid such risk and danger and instead to want and desire comfort, ease, and security.

The resurrection of Jesus from the death challenges us. Challenges us to take seriously who this man Jesus was and is. Challenges us to take a hard and honest look at our own lives and of those around us. And challenges us to make changes to accommodate Jesus and his teachings in our lives.

So yes, the resurrection of Christ is about hope. But not hope as the world knows hope. Because the hope that Jesus and the Christian faith give is not of this world, but out of this world. The Christian hope is a hope not based on fantasy or wishful thinking, but on the Lord God Almighty himself. And it is a hope certified and assured by the actual, physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

Alleluia, alleluia. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.