Easter Day Meditation 2013

Acts 10:34-43 and Luke 24: 1-12

Fr Jonathan Ewer SSM

31st March 2013

But peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

In every Jewish home at the Passover meal, the youngest person present asks the question ‘Why are we doing this? What’s all this business about unleavened bread and bitter herbs?’ And the father of the family, presiding over the meal, gives the answer, ‘We do this because our ancestors were slaves in Egypt, but the Lord freed us from slavery…’ and so they go through the story in detail. And the detail is important, because their Passover meal is a re-living of the original Passover event. For they were there, in the loins of their ancestors, as they quaintly put it; they were there in the bodies of their ancestors; they were there as slaves in Egypt and they were there at the crossing of the red sea. They were there in the desert and at the foot of Mount Sinai. They were there as they trecked around the desert and eventually made it to the promised land. They were there, in the bodies of their ancestors. So every year they re-lived the Passover event. They didn’t just remember it, they re-lived it symbolically, in their homes at this meal with unleavened bread representing the manna in the wilderness, the bitter herbs representing the difficulties of the journey, and the wine poured out representing the blood of the covenant.

During this last week, the whole Christian community – well, apart from the Orthodox who have got the date wrong again – apart from them, the whole Christian community has been re-living its Passover. Last Sunday we re-lived the entry into Jerusalem with palm branches and crosses welcoming the Messiah into the place of Peace – which is ironically what Jerusalem is thought to have meant: the place of peace. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we listened to the stories about Mary anointing Jesus feet with costly ointment as if for burial, about the Greeks from Galilee wanting to see Jesus, which prompts Jesus to say ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified’, and about the terrible moment at the supper when Jesus knew that someone there was going to betray him… All of these stories led us relentlessly towards the events of that Thursday evening, the last supper, the foot washing, the agony in the garden. ‘Not my will but thine be done.’ The tension mounts as we go through Thursday night, watching the encounters between Jesus and the Jewish and Roman authorities, and watching his disciples slinking away through fear and bewilderment.

Then the crucifixion itself. On Good Friday we heard the passion story from St John’s gospel, and then there was time to pray in front of the cross, until 3 o’clock when it was all over and there was an emptiness – like death. Yesterday, Holy Saturday, was a nothing day, an empty day, which we filled with doing things to prepare for Easter, busying ourselves the way that people do when they are in grief.

Then last night or early this morning, there was the lighting of the new fire, the blessing and lighting of the Easter candle, which we brought into church. “The Light of Christ: Thanks be to God”.

At Willen we sang the Exsultet, an ancient song which tells the Exodus story of the pillar of fire which led the Jews by night through the wilderness to freedom – eventually. Going the through the Red Sea is linked to baptism so we renewed our baptismal vows and celebrated our washing for freedom, our being brought into the Body of Christ.

All of these events this week have been for us a re-living of our Passover event – and it is a reliving, because in the nature of symbolism we have been baptized into Christ, made parts of his body so that what happened to that body happens to us: we share in his crucifixion, we share his death, his descent into hell, and we share his rising from the dead.

The Jews re-live the Passover, the escape from Egypt; we re-live our Passover, our escape from slavery – the slavery of sin. It isn’t simply remembering past events: we are re-living stuff that has happened to us, and keeps on happening to us, so that we are different people – and will keep on being made different people.

There is another point about this re-living business: the Jews looked backwards – to the Exodus, and beyond that to Abraham, to see the events which made them the people of God, the events which made them who they are. They march forward indeed, but whenever they get carried away and forget to look back to their formative events, they go off the rails and get into all sorts of trouble. A prophet has to be sent to get them back on track.

It is the same with us. We look back to the events of Holy Week, the events that made us the people we are. We march forward, of course, but we know perfectly well that whenever we forget our origins, whenever we get obsessed with moving towards the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we get off course and a prophet arises to make us stop and re-think. That applies to us as a church, it applies to us as a nation, it applies to us as individuals.

In our own lives we can see the hand of God only when we look back. We can see where we have come from, we can see the important stepping stones, the decisions we made or which were made for us, we can see how we’ve been led. Faith is an assumption that God will keep on leading us, a belief that the direction will be more or less the same, a hope that he is drawing us nearer to himself. And it is faith, not knowledge. We don’t know where we’re heading, we don’t know where we’re being taken, but in faith we go on, tentatively, trying things out, but confident that we are being led – to the promised land, to the kingdom of God. The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty. People who say they know what God plans for them, people who say they know the will of God, frighten me a bit. Fundamentalists of any kind frighten me. They are absolutely they are right, and everyone else is wrong. It is a short step from that illusion to violence and oppression.

We are a people of faith, not knowledge, a people of hope, not certainty. Every little we are given to understand of the will of God is provisional, enough to work with for the time being, but not the whole truth. And every bit that we think might be the truth we test by checking it with what God has done in the past. We can see the pain – and can identify with the suffering of Jesus, we can see also the moments of wonder and amazement as the presence of God is revealed to us – and we can identify with the Resurrection.

If we can see where God has been leading us, if we can see the stepping stones, if it all makes sense – God’s sense, that is, not ours necessarily - then we have the courage to continue. That is being brave, that is being radical, going back to our roots in order to check out what we are about to do now.

Holy Week enables us to re-live the passion with Jesus. It takes us back to our roots, to the crucifixion in which we play a part, not simply as observers of an event 2000 years ago, but as participants in the mystical body of Christ. We are there in his body. Holy week takes us back to our roots so that we can see where we come from, and that tells us who we are, and where we might be going. And the Resurrection of our Lord seals the deal: slavery to sin is over, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name, as St Peter said. The kingdom has come near, and we are given glimpses of the truth, the truth that shall set us free. Our response is not a triumphalist certainty, to lord it over others. No. Like Peter we are amazed at what has happened.

And whereas Moses commanded every Jewish family to re-live the Passover every year, Jesus, our new law-giver, commands us to re-live our Passover – every year in Holy Week, yes, but also every week, or even more often than that, every time we celebrate the Eucharist – which is what we are doing now.

So today especially, today of all days, as we come to share the Eucharist, let our eating the holy bread feed our awareness that we are one body with him, the body tortured, crucified, and resurrected. And let our drinking the holy wine slake our thirst for the things of the new covenant, for justice, for peace, in the new Jerusalem, the city of peace. And with Peter, let us go home, amazed at what has happened, amazed at what has happened to us, and amazed at the possibilities God is leading us into.