Easter Day - The Power of Love

MATTHEW 28: 1-10

Rowan Williams put it well when he says that when we celebrate Easter;

“we are standing in the Middle of a second ‘Big Bang,’ a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and intense as the very beginning of the universe.”

What a claim that is - that the day we are celebrating is on a level with the very beginning of time. And yet whilst both ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Resurrection’ are in many ways beyond the scopes of our imagination, together they do so much to define our understanding of the world. The former brings the world into being and is in essence the science of creation - through which a loving God sets of the cosmos with its bright array of possibilities. The latter transforms how we see the world that is known to us and how we see ourselves. Both are within the realms of mystery. Both bring into play new realities.

And yet both come without expectation. One of the strongest evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus is that his followers did not expect it. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday we go about our lives contentedly because we know what the outcome of the story will be. And in that we lose some of the power of the story. For to those closest to Jesus, the inbetween time was a time of hopelessness and despair. Their world had caved in. The hopes and dreams that had been theirs, now lay totally and absolutely devastated. Their world was shrouded in complete darkness. All that remained was to visit the tomb - those painful visits that we all make in times of loss.

And so it is that Mary Magdelene and another Mary - the mother of James according to the other synoptic Gospels - came to the tomb. According to Mark and Luke, their intent was to anoint the dead body of Jesus but of this intent there is no mention made by Matthew. Indeed it is surely questionable whether the authorities would have allowed them to go about such a task. But anyhow, what matters is that such an anointing never happens and this becomes a most unusual visit to a tomb. Matthew tells us of an earthquake and an angel sat in the tomb, with Roman guards outside frozen in a state of petrification. The angel tells the news that Jesus is risen and tells the women to let the disciples know for Jesus is heading for Galilee where it had all began. And then as the women who are by now a combination of joy and fear, hurry away to take the good news to the disciples, they are met by the Risen Christ.

Every year we tell these Gospel stories of the appearances of the Risen Christ. And whilst the accounts of the Gospels have their differences, what they have in common is that there was no expectancy of resurrection and indeed those closest to Jesus had big difficulty in believing in it. Why? Because the Resurrection of Jesus was outside of their world vision. For the Resurrection of Jesus cannot but change how we see God, the world and ourselves. Yes, like ‘Big Bang,’ it is a defining moment!

But how does it serve as a defining moment? Well, William Sloan Coffin puts it well;

“Easter has to do with the victory of seemingly powerless love over loveless power.”

In the story of Holy Week and the Passion of Christ, we see plenty of loveless power. We see loveless power in;

- the Authority of the Empire of Rome with its military might and power of life and death

- the economic power based upon the temple where the poor were exploited by the families who controlled the trade

- the religious power of the High Priest and Sanhedrin silencing the voices that might just undermine them and their positions of dominance over peoples’ lives

- the power of a mob who normally would have been subject to power but who were now relishing the moment of being able to decide a man’s fate.


But all this power rooted in domination, power that on Good Friday would seemed to have been triumphant, falls before the power of love. The power of love which had been demonstrated in the liberating teaching and healings of Jesus as well as in his self giving death, receives a resounding YES from God in the act of Resurrection. Here is the emphatic approval for all eternity of that all inclusive love embodied in Jesus. Now we begin to get the Resurrection message that

- Life is stronger than death

- Love is stronger than hatred

- Non violence is stronger than armies and weaponry

- Inclusion is victorious over all that excludes.


Put bluntly the message of Resurrection confronts much of what we glibly accept. It speaks to us of a new way, Christ’s way, which embraces human dignity and dares to dream of realising a new reality of peace, building people up and respect for what Rabbi Jonathan Sachs describes as “The Dignity of Difference” rather than our lazy acceptance of inevitability of conflict, shame culture and fear of diversity. Resurrection challenges us to question where we are going when

- a Ghanaian widowed mother of two, Ama Sumani, dying of cancer is deported to a land where it was known that she would be denied the drug that would have prolonged her life

- failed asylum seekers from Zimbabwe are threatened with deportation and the promise of imprisonment on their arrival by the ever tender, Robert Mugabe

- great games can be hosted and the most lethal of weapons afforded and yet basic housing is left an unfulfilled dream for all too many, even here in Bideford

- the children of this country were fund to be the unhappiest in the west in a recent survey despite Britain being the 5th wealthiest country.


You see, Resurrection is not a safe subject. It means that we have to take this Jesus and the Kingdom he proclaimed very seriously. His message challenged the norms of his day and the response can be seen in Good Friday. To expect it to be warmly welcomed today is a pipe dream born from the womb of ignorance.

And yet, it has to be the basis of our hope. Without Resurrection, hope is dead. But with Resurrection comes hope to battered lives and smashed up communities. For new and fresh beginnings become possible through the resurrected one who says;

“Behold I make all things new.”

This evening I want to encourage you to put Resurrection at the heart of your faith. I do believe that it points us to life beyond the grave. I take the Apostle Paul very seriously when he writes;

“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

I take him seriously when he says that without Resurrection our faith is futile. And as one who is often involved in accompanying people whose lives are coming to an end, and in comforting those who are bereaved, this is important to me and I wholly believe it. But I am equally convinced that Resurrection is as much about our living as followers of Christ.

Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Bishop of Mew Hampshire. His appointment was controversial due to the fact that he had been in a same sex partnership for some years. In the melee surrounding his appointment, he received many death threats and indeed before his consecration he was asked to provide his blood type so that if he was attacked at the consecration, treatment could begin on the way to hospital. Writing for the online Anglican publication “The Witness” at Easter a couple of years after the events, he looked back making the following observation;

“I remember saying to our two grown daughters, who were worried and anxious about my well-being, "You know, there are worse things than death. Some people actually never live -- and that is the worst death of all. If something does happen, remember that the God who has loved me my whole life, will still be loving me, and I will have died doing something I believe in with my whole heart."

As I strapped on my bulletproof vest just before the service, I remember feeling blessedly calm about whatever might happen. Not because I am brave, but because God is good and because God has overcome death, so that I never have to be afraid again

That is the power of the resurrection. not in what happens after death, but what the knowledge of our resurrection does for our lives and ministries before death.”

Mighty words indeed that remind us how we are in the care of the one who has defeated the most dreaded of enemies. Words that encourage us that we can journey forwards knowing that we are accompanied by a living, loving God. A God who sets each of us free and takes away the fear of hopelessness. Jurgen Moltmann came to faith amidst the ashes of his country’s defeat in the Second World War. He first read the Bible in a prisoner of war camp. There he sought hope and found it in the risen Christ and hope has been a theme of his writings ever since. In his “Jesus Christ for today’s world” he puts it this way;

“ In the image of the resurrection of the body, life and death can be brought into harmony in such a way that death doesn’t have to be repressed either. In this spirit of the resurrection I can her and now wholly live, wholly love and wholly die, for I Know with certainty that I shall wholly rise again. In this hope I can love all created things, for I know that none of them will be lost.”

My favourite film of all time is “Dead Poets Society.” In that film the inspirational albeit unorthodox teacher, John Keating, seeks to inspire the pupils of a stuffy school where boys live out their parents’ dreams. In once scene he takes them to look at the pictures of past pupils who are long dead. He urges them to get close to the glass and asks them if they hear what those pupils are saying to those of today. At that, Keating starts to whisper

“Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem!”

before sharing the words in English -

“Seize the moment! - Have an extraordinary life boys!”

So today as we celebrate the “surge of divine energy” that is the Resurrection, we are called once more to live out the counter cultural Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. His work of radical inclusion of all peoples as being of infinite worth goes on. And it continues with the Risen Christ. May we live extraordinary lives as Easter People daring even to be a little bit subversive.

Carpe Diem! Seize the moment!



BIDEFORD METHODIST CIRCUIT EASTER SERVICE SUNDAY MARCH 23RD 2008