Easter Day 2010

Sermons 2010

If you were asked to write an epitaph for your grave stone - what would you write? Something about yourself? A message for posterity? It was the late Spike Milligan who left instructions for his gravestone to be inscribed with the words, "I told you I was ill". Basically, "I told you so." No doubt there have been times when we have been tempted to say the same. Be honest, you can think of at least one occasion when a pearl of wisdom of yours was ignored by a relative or a friends and you have been sorely tempted to say, "I told you so."

Bishop Tom, when commenting on our Gospel passage, writes "The opening mood of Easter morning is one of surprise, astonishment, fear and confusion."

Christ could have been tempted to say, "I told you so."

We've just heard it: the women go to the tomb furnished with spices for the treating of the body - they were in no way expecting what they found. They were puzzled. After the encounter with the two men in dazzling white - whose appearance rendered them terrified - they went off to report to the disciples. The message was basically, "He told you so". And yet his words had gone unheeded, perhaps hardly noticed,and so, still, the reaction of the disciples was one of disbelief. "These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." Would we have been any different?

On Good Friday morning this church was blessed with the children and youth leading a service that took us through the events of Holy Week - as far as Good Friday, no further! I was delighted by the numbers that were here when you consider that we did not have our usual holy week course this year because the schools had not broken up.

At the end of that wonderful service I told the children that they would need to be back in Church on Easter morning to hear the end of the story. I could see the sheer disbelief and pity on those young faces. I could read their minds: the poor vicar; has no one told him that it all works out alright in the end?

And yet, how often in the confusion and difficulties of life do we all need to be reminded that it all works out alright in the end? - We who would claim to know the end of the story.

For those first disciples it was all "a puzzlement", as the King of Siam would have said. Speaking to his son's governess and teacher, Anna, in The King and I, he could say, or chant, "When I was a boy, world was better off What was so, was so, what was not, was not. Now I am a man, world has changed a lot Some things nearly so, others nearly not... In my head are many facts of which I was not certain I was sure, It's a puzzlement."

We can all have sympathy with that at times - we'd like to go back to more certain, familiar times: when what was so, was so! On Thursday morning, I went in to a school that I have been visiting for eighteen years, of which I am vice-chair of governors (not mentioning any names, of course) and, by a person who knows me well, I was asked if I had any identification. I thought it was an April fool's joke at first. A box had to be ticked; and I concluded that the world has gone mad.

Sometimes the world appears more sad than mad: with our own bereavements and sorrows and difficulties; and with the death of British soldiers in Afghanistan and innocents in earth quakes and so on. Sometimes it appears simply bad - we think of the failings that have led to our present financial difficulties as a nation, for example; in shame we consider the failings of some churches...

This morning we celebrate the good news of Easter for this world. At a diocesan conference several years ago, the Bishop of Sheffield suggested that the Church needs more prayer and more parties. Amen to that! I'm sure part of the success of this church is that both are taken seriously. But Easter for us could just be a cause for great partying because it marks the end of strict Lenten discipline: we can get back to the booze and the chocolate - and all manner of other vices possibly. Yet the good news of Easter, the cause for celebration - for having a party, is that despite all the puzzlement of life on planet earth, the risen Christ calls us forward into new life: there is no going back.

As one bishop discovered when he got to heaven. [The Bishop of Carlisle was told that, yes he could enter if he agreed to do a thousand years of penance by being shackled to an old, grumpy woman. He agreed, having little choice; but within minutes saw his old rival the Bishop of Blackburn -who was universally known to be mean - shackled to the most gorgeous, shapely young woman. . The late Bishop of Carlisle was furious; St. Peter must have made a mistake. He felt justified in complaining. St. Peter was having none of it: "You get on with your penance, and let that young lady get on with hers."]

In this service we baptize Ava Lily and we also renew our own baptismal promises. The words of St. Paul in Romans 6:4 resonate "We have been buried with Christ in his death so that we may rise with Him in his resurrection." Old errors and false certainties have to be put behind us. Christ offers fullness of life: a life of joy and hope in which the puzzling things that confuse and sap our hope give way to the God who shows himself to be utterly faithful.

Some days we may struggle to believe it, but Easter calls us to remember the words of Mother Julian and recite them in every situation, "All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well."

By his dying and rising, has Christ not told us so?

With my very best wishes,

John

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