Sermon: 12 April 'On the 3rd day, in the evening...'

Last week, we foucused upon the morning of that first Easter Day, and of Jesus' appearance to Mary of Magdala in the garden.  But it didn't end there.  Jesus kept appearing to various followers over the course of that day, and so this morning, we turn our attention to the later part of Easter afternoon and early evening...

1 John 3:1-7

Luke 24:36-48

Let’s pray:

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

It’s approaching evening on that first Easter day.

Strange things are afoot

and it all centres upon Jesus:

the man they’ve seen beaten, mocked,

and tortured.

The man they’ve watched

being lifted up onto a cross.

The one who, after having cried out in agony,

breathed his last

...and died.

The one whose body had been

wrapped in grave linen

and put into the tomb several days before.

As sure as night follows day,

his life    had finished.

Hadn’t it?

But today, they’re beginning to wonder.

Odd things have been happening.

Wild words from Mary earlier in the day:
a stone rolled away,

an empty tomb.

Grief surely unhinging her mind?

But then, an investigation:

Peter and John go and see:
confirm the story of the stone, the tomb,

and tell of grave clothes, neatly folded.

It’s all   very odd indeed...

And suddenly, Mary’s back,

her face transformed from grief to joy.

It’s as if she’s lit up from the inside, radiant.

‘I have seen the Lord!’ she says, in awe and amazement.

How can this be?

What can it mean?

The gathered followers talk for hours after that,

puzzled and frightened.

As the day wears on, some of their number leave,

heading back to Emmaus,

unable to make sense of the strange

events of the morning.

The dead do not come back to life.

...Do they?

The conversations continue,

fear and bewilderment grow.

As the darkness of evening begins to take hold

the two followers from Emmaus

burst back into the room.

Like Mary, their faces are alight

with wonder and joy -

they, too, have seen Jesus,

have walked with him, talked with him.

The group watches them,

as they tell the story of their encounter

with the risen Lord.

They’re animated, excited,

bursting with new enthusiasm,

new life.

Surely these are not the same men who left several hours ago -

the ones who left looking...   

so dejected,     so afraid?

But... death can’t be overthrown,

can it?

There, in the locked room,

fear and anxiety increase amongst the ones

who have heard of, but not seen, the risen Jesus.

They are troubled:
where is the body of the one they’ve followed?

What of the stone,

the grave-clothes,

their transformed friends

now making outlandish claims?

And then, in the midst of the conversation

he appears.

Jesus.

The one who is supposed to be dead.

They are startled out of their speculation,

and even more afraid.

Having heard,

they now see...

but what is it that they’re seeing?

And because it’s simply and utterly impossible

for the dead to rise again,

they think it more probable

that the one standing before them

must be

has to be

can only be

a ghost.

Because that’s the only possible explanation.

Isn’t it?

Gathered together, sharing their grief,

puzzling over the strange

turn of events of the day,

the disciples’ encounter with Jesus is one

in which all their senses are engaged.

The initial approach is through sound:

though words.

He invites them to be at peace -
‘Peace be with you.’

Because peace is the very thing that

they are all lacking

at this particular moment.

Their response is a mix of

‘this can’t really be real’

of fear, of shock...

and their reaction is met by Jesus moving from words to touch:
they’re invited to see with another

of their senses:

‘Look...touch me and see’

This is an invitation to open their minds

as well as their eyes:

to see and understand

that the impossible has happened.

Feet and hands, marked by nails, are shown -

the resurrected body carries the scars

of the recent past.

Logic, reason, demands that this can’t be happening,

it’s not sensible, rational, or possible

...is it?

Something is happening to the disciples

in this encounter with Jesus:

before, they were fearful at what

they were seeing -

now, although they still can’t quite believe it,

can’t quite take it all in,

they dare to have hope -

they are less filled with fear

and more filled with amazement.

Despair has moved to joy.

Can it really    be?

They now so hope that it can.

So hope that it’s    true.

And in response,

Jesus tries to help them see more fully,

again looking to the senses:

taste and smell.

It seems a strange request to make,

given the circumstances,

but he asks for food:

‘Do you have anything to eat?’

A piece of baked fish is given to him.

As they watch,

he takes it, eats it.

The smell of the fish fills the room.

In the midst of this extraordinary encounter,

perhaps it’s this very ordinary,

every day, simple act of eating food

that reminds them of other meals

they’ve shared with this man -

literally helps put flesh on the bones

of what’s happening here in the room,

and that perhaps grounds this encounter

in the most real of ways:

because ghosts don’t eat,

do they?

As they see him eat,

finally, they see and understand,

that it really is Jesus:

alive and risen.

They make sense of the day’s events at last -

the stone

the tomb

the folded grave-clothes,

the strange things their friends had been saying.

As with Mary, in the early morning,

and the followers on the road back to Emmaus,

Jesus then explains to them:

‘I told you all of this when I was with you’

explains to them through the use of scripture -

the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms -

that all of this was to happen

...that all of this is the fulfilment of Scripture.

That the Messiah would suffer

and rise from the dead on the third day...

And that from this,

the message of God’s great love -

the message of repentance and of God’s forgiveness of sins -

of the restoration of relationship between God and humanity -

...that this message would be preached

in Christ’s name to the world...

and that it would start here, with them:
for the message of this Good News

would first be preached in Jerusalem.

In their unexpected encounter with the resurrected Jesus,

the disciples become witnesses

to the work of God in the world

the work of God for the world, in and through the person of Jesus.

Their way of seeing the world has changed

in the light of the resurrection.

They don’t suddenly become perfect and all-knowing overnight.

As we see in our other reading this morning,

following Jesus,

journeying in faith with him,

is an ongoing, lifetime process:

‘what we will be has not yet been made known.’

In the disciples’ encounter with the

risen Jesus, however,

there is the beginning of understanding,

a process of transformation,

learning a new way of being and living and loving in the world -

of seeing the world through the lens of the resurrection.

Where do we encounter God, I wonder?

Or, an even more basic question:

Do we expect to encounter God?

Or, like the disciples, do we find ourselves

encountering God quite unexpectedly

on occasion in the midst of the

ordinary, everyday stuff of life?

Find that there are times and places

that God seems to suddenly turn up,

unexpected, but very present -

reminding us that wherever we go,

wherever we are,

he is always with us?

Find that the encounter has somehow

changed our way of seeing others,

ourselves, particular situations, the world?

Or sometimes the question is asked

‘how do I connect to God - encounter God?’

Sometimes the answer is given:

‘pray, read the bible,

join with God’s people in worship.’

And I’m not about to turn around and say don’t do any of that -

because all of that is hugely helpful in growing

in the knowledge

of the One who we worship.

But I wonder sometimes if it’s simpler than that?

I wonder if it’s more a matter of realising

that it’s God

who connects with us:

God always making that first approach,

God who, in answer to our lack of peace

and our scrabbling about to find him, says:
‘Peace be with you’

who invites us to see, really see him as he is...

who invites us, in bread and in wine,

to taste and see that the Lord is good;

who, in the words of Scripture

and in the Living Word of Christ,

invites us to expect the unexpected:

to open our minds to the realms of

God’s infinite possibilities -

the God who brought his Son, Jesus,

back from the dead,

and who calls us

to be his witnesses in the world...

Witnesses ...

In encountering the risen Jesus, the disciples were

given the task of sharing the

Good News with others about someone

they were passionate about:

who’d taught them about living life abundantly, fully, authentically;

who’d opened up the scriptures to them

and in so doing,

opened up their minds to look beyond the box of ‘it’s aye bin’

who, in living, in dying, and in rising from death

showed them the power of God’s uncontainable, unlimited love...

It is this same God who calls us his children,

who calls us to love in word and in action

and calls us, like the disciples

to be witnesses -

to share the most amazing story

that the world can ever hear:
Let’s go and tell the world of the One who triumphed over death

our Lord of all hopefulness

our Lord of all joy.

And to his name be all glory, praise and honour,

now and forevermore,

Amen.