Easter without the buildings - He is still risen !

Alleluia, Christ has risen !
He is risen indeed, Alleluia !

D William Sangster, a Methodist who had been working on a renewal movement in this country following the 2^nd world war contracted a disease which progressively paralysed his body, and even his vocal chords. But on the last Easter Day that he was alive, he painfully wrote a note to his daughter saying, ‘How terrible it is to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout “He is Risen!” But it is far worse to wake up with a voice and not want to shout…’ 

Easter Day is the greatest day of celebration in the whole year for Christians, the day that Jesus rose from the dead, the day when death was destroyed forever and the day when victory which seemed to have been claimed a couple of days before by the forces of darkness, was suddenly claimed by love, by God.

It is the day to shout, ‘He is risen’ ! But this year those shouts will be a bit different. Rather than joining together in our church buildings we are to do it in our houses, in small family groups or perhaps even alone, but the words are no less powerful and perhaps in some ways remind us that we are united as one in the name of Jesus always. 

When Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on that first Easter morning, it was empty. She went back and told Peter and he and another disciple went to check on what she was saying. Sure enough, the tomb was empty. 

And in the gospel according to John there is one interesting verse about this (Ch20 v9), ‘as yet, they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.’

They didn’t understand what had happened because, well, why would you ? People don’t rise from the dead. The execution was carried out efficiently. It had been proved that Jesus was dead before he was taken down from the cross. The stone was put in front of the tomb, the soldiers guarded it – Jesus was dead and he wasn’t coming back, and the disciples, confused, disappointed, grieving, didn’t expect him to be back. 

Yes, there are passages from what we know as the Old Testament which predicted that Jesus would rise from the dead, but at that stage that wasn’t how they would have been interpreted. Jesus was dead and he was not coming back… 

But as we jump forward a bit from the confusion at the tomb of Jesus we see a group of Jesus’ followers who, following Jesus appearing to them, led new lives with new courage and new found inspiration. Death had been defeated and nothing would or could hurt them again.

And that would lead them into all kinds of physical danger and no doubt some physical pain, as well as to the sentence of death for some, but nothing would ever hurt them again, and they were sure of that. 

Jesus was back and the lives of his followers were transformed forever. Suddenly the teaching of Jesus made sense. Suddenly his call to love made sense. Suddenly they realised that they weren’t alone to share Jesus’ message. Jesus was, and would always be, with them. 

And that is an amazing message for us today as well. Wherever we are and whether we are faced with loneliness, with fear for ourselves or for loved ones, whether we are worrying about the future, Jesus is with us… 

And he has overcome the darkest things the world could ever throw at him and we can and we should rejoice always because of that. We may not have the church buildings in which to shout ‘He is risen’ this year, we may not be with members of our church families, but we are united as a church, perhaps more than ever before in concentrating on those words ‘He is risen’. 

Wherever we are this year, it has perhaps emphasised to us something we needed to hear and that is that the walls of our buildings, if we allow ourselves to be constrained by them, limit the message we share. 

We’ve so often acted as if our faith is only valid if we do it in our ‘proper building’. We’ve often acted as if we have the authority on how to worship, what exactly to believe about every doctrine of the church, who is welcome and who is not, we’re this year called back to focus on the basic and most important and transformative message of all, ‘Jesus is risen !’

Nothing else matters… So from whatever church or place we might come, whatever opinions we might hold and whatever the future may bring, that news, ‘Jesus is risen’ assures us that he is with us always. It assures us that there is no darkness we cannot face with him on our side because he has been there and conquered it.

This year we don’t have to choose which is ‘our church’. We don’t have to drive or walk past several others to get to the right one for us. We don’t have to go to the one with the best preacher or the most comfortable seats. It doesn’t matter what hymns are sung, whether babies are baptised, who receives the bread and wine at communion, who is welcome and who is not, because love has won the day… God is love and the only choice we are called to make this year is whether we can say and know in our hearts, ‘Jesus is risen’. AMEN