Christ is Risen - he is Risen indeed.

A sermon preached at Wolverton 

 The Reverend David Moore 

 Easter Day 2012

Christ is Risen - he is Risen indeed. How do we make sense of such words in our world today. How do we take these words into ourselves not as comfort but as awful, disturbing 'truth'? How do we avoid using these words as some kind of spiritual shower gel which make us feel nice and sleek about our faith?

Last week I had a mailshot from a Christian Charity. This appeal leaflet, speaking of a child, led with these words:

She went into hospital with cancer in her leg
and came out with Jesus in her heart.

So, appalled with these words, I immediately deposited the appeal into the recycling bin!

I am still trying to come to grips with why I reacted so strongly to this form of advertising. I think it was something far deeper than the fact that it was cheap, insensitive, exploitative.

Meanwhile, the very same day I noticed a news item in the MK Citizen - Over the Rainbow in honor of Harry. This is a story of unimaginable grief, loss, struggle, survival and self belief. A story which, for me, captures the essence of Easter Day, as did another story a few days later in the Guardian.

Listen to these words by John Norgrove, the father of Linda Norgrove:

In 2010 our daughter Linda, an aid worker, was abducted in eastern Afghanistan. She subsequently died during a rescue attempt by US Special Forces, killed by a US grenade. We refuse to apportion blame to the Taliban or the soldiers, preferring to start a charitable foundation to help women and children affected by war.

Three stories - the first overtly religious, the other ones not. For me the stories without reference to religion are immeasurably closer to the Good Friday/Easter story. For me Easter Day means loss without defeat!

Harry and Jessica Mould were twins, they lived on Greenleys and a few years ago I baptised them at Stony Stratford Methodist Church. I have such lovely photos of each twin giving me a kiss following that service. It was a remarkably beautiful occasion.

Sadly, Harry unexpectedly died in March 2009 when he was five. A while later Jessica had a new baby brother, whom I also baptised. The inquiries into Harry’s death dragged on for two years, revolving around issues of medical negligence. The inquest was only finalised in December 2011.

Harry’s Rainbow is a charity set up by Harry’s parents to raise awareness of child bereavement, to raise funds, and provide support for bereaved children. There is a gentle, colourful, friendly website which is, in its own way, a marker for our times as to how to handle issues of life and death. ... for me a genuine Easter sign!

In the last 20 years within the UK hundreds of charities have been founded offering support and practical resources to families confronted by untimely death. Think no further than the many responses to British deaths in Afghanistan.

The Christian Movement came into being in response to a tragic loss and, like the Mould and Norgrove families, and countless others, found ways of turning great loss into a movement of thanksgiving and support.

Some of you will know how deeply I have been influenced, indeed captivated, by the life, witness and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who himself met an untimely death at the hands of Hitler.

It is with family members such as Odette Mould and John Norgrove and with all families mourning unexpected and untimely death we turn to the New Testament and the Easter story.

One of the most profound strands in Bonhoeffer’s teaching was that God called us to live as if he did not exist - the most profound point of Christian believing is found in learning to ‘live a life of faith without God and for God’.

What we have in the Easter story are human beings, like you and me, writing their story of loss and survival and for them it is spun around the events which followed the untimely death of Jesus, their dearest friend.

The way of remembering which we encounter in the New Testament has nothing in common with what might be called ‘the British stiff upper lip’ approach to life. What those first Christians seemed to do was continue practising the art of godliness as portrayed in Jesus who was gone from them. That was a project not without difficulty as the New Testament letters make clear.

Over the centuries, followers in that way have at times drifted further away from the core of the Jesus story but through it all the world has been gifted with some of greatest music, painting and sculpture, inspiring poets, composers, dancers, storytellers who through imaginative action reached beyond what they knew to what they now hoped for.

People deal with life and its grief in many ways - by being stoical, quietly bearing the pain whilst feeding the best they can on the story of resurrection.

Fifty-nine years ago - I was 16. I had done moderately badly at school, excelling most in sport and disobedience! I had, through family, become attached to the Methodist Church and generally got involved in things. The minister of this large Methodist Church in Bath organised an Open Air service on a Council estate, on a summer Sunday afternoon to publicise the fact that a new Church was to be built in that community.

The minister was Charles Clarke who strode ahead of us across a large grassed area surrounded by houses. I had no idea what was going on. Oh I wished I had not gone! I was racked to the core with adolescent embarrassment, longing beyond words to be somewhere else. Then he asked us to sing! I could have died! Many years later I began to recognise something far deeper was going on which I can now best describe like this - my embarrassed journey across that uneven green was like having a deep furrow ploughed across my heart, a furrow which has been producing crop after crop after crop for 59 years.

Like those first disciples, I had grasped just a smidgeon of the Jesus story and fortunately I had room within myself to accommodate it.

Easter Day is discovering death is not the end. Christ is risen - here - in me. How? No idea! Why? After 50 years I am still trying to work it out!

I would encourage you to visit the Harry’s Rainbow website. It contains some of the best practical pastoral advice on bereavement I have ever seen. And it is a pleasure.

And a Post Script - more from the John Norgrove article:

Last week we travelled to Kabul and Jalalabad to meet Linda’s friends and our Afghan-based volunteers. We visited the children’s medical house, where families from rural areas are accommodated while their kids undergo operations. We saw a fantastic Afghan children’s circus - it was great to see kids singing and dancing so carefree, escaping the battle-scarred neighborhoods where razor wire tops every wall. We also visited a refuge where women on the run from murderous families, acid attack and others can receive respite and care.

Now does that not echo in you something of the lightness of touch in the resurrection appearance as told of people on the Emmaus Road.

The story of Easter is for the living not the dead - it tells us grief and bereavement need not have the final word. Is that not good news?