Sermon, Easter Sunday, March 27

Easter Sunday came in with a blast of sleet and hail
through the hills and valleys, and with three Sunday services:
The 8am 'early bird' service at Crawford suddenly became an indoor event,
looking out to the Clyde and hills from the warmth of the manse lounge-room.
After a short time of worship, an Easter breakfast of bacon rolls and tea was cheerfully consumed (with thanks to Aileen for her fab organising!).

As 10.30am approached, the parish church in Abington was filling up fast, with standing room only by the end.
We had the delight of an Easter baptism, and welcomed Orla Isabella Josie Leyden
into God's family represented here at the Upper Clyde.
To the call: 'Christ is risen, Alleluia!',
we joyfully responded: 'He is risen indeed, Alleluia!'
And our first hymn was the cue to release our buried Alleluias
from the first Sunday of Lent - this year, 8 helium balloons each 
with a letter from 'Alleluia' magically rose from the pulpit, 
while the paper-tear crosses we'd made all those weeks back
were suddenly suspended via fishing line from pulpit to lectern... 
all this, while daffodils were being used to decorate the Cross. 
It was great to see so many folk of all ages turn out for our busy and fun service,
and during the last hymn, Easter eggs were given out to everyone - not
sure how many eggs made it back home.  
The sermon for the service is further below.

Evening worship, at 6.30, was held in Leadhills, during which, we shared in
a simple act of communion together. We also test-drove a digital hymnal, as
our organist for the evening was unwell. Smaller members were very generous
and open-hearted, sharing Easter eggs with the rest of us after worship.

Easter 2016 at UCPC: a busy, happy, joy-filled day. 
Christ is risen, Alleluia!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The sermon preached at 10.30:

READINGS Isaiah 65:17-25, John 20:1-18

‘For I am about to create new heavens 
and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered 
or come to mind but be glad, and rejoice forever in what I am creating.’
Words from the prophet Isaiah - 
and over 500 hundred years later, 
in the early-dawn of not-yet light, 
a new thing   has taken place.
Mary comes to the tomb where the body of Jesus 
has so recently been laid and sees that the tomb has been disturbed:
the stone has been rolled away –
alarmed, puzzled, not knowing what to think,
she rushes off to tell the disciples.
In the early-dawn of not-yet light,
a new thing has taken place:
in the movement of a stone from a tomb,
the very foundations of heaven and earth 
tremble, tremble, tremble...
the former things are coming to an end –
except, Mary, and the disciples who come running to see,
don’t understand this yet...

Someone I know once decided to try to summarise Easter in five words.
He came up with: ‘the disciples were utterly gobsmacked.’
We get a sense of this, in our gospel passage this morning,
with all the to-ing and fro-ing, 
and running from house to garden tomb and back again.
Confusion reigns supreme:
who’s taken the body?
why would anyone do that?
There’s a feeling of conspiracy in the air –
‘they’ have taken the body...
presumably the authorities?
But the big question...?
Where is Jesus: where have they put him?

‘The disciples were utterly gobsmacked.’
They’d been with Jesus for three years.
They’d seen what Jesus could do,
heard his many stories,
travelled the dusty roads with their friend, and rabbi.
He’d challenged them –
through his teachings; 
through his habit of spending time with people decent folk 
wouldn’t - shouldn’t be seen dead with;
through his attitude to the religious authorities...
And lately, he’d challenged the disciples with his single-minded 
determination to journey to Jerusalem:
they’d had misgivings about that particular idea.
Even he had said, as he wept:
‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets 
and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather 
your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, 
and you were not willing.’
Nothing good could come of this plan of his to travel to Jerusalem.

And yet, they dared to hope that something good might just come of it.
The noise and smell and excitement of the crowd
as Jesus rode into Jerusalem was astonishing:
coats and palm branches were being waved, 
or made into a pathway – it was all heady stuff,
a good start – perhaps the start of new things:
a new kingdom free of Roman tyranny – 
God’s kingdom brought in,
in that very act of riding a donkey into the city...
A new heaven, 
a new earth
brought in with songs of ‘Hosanna!’

‘The disciples were utterly gobsmacked,’
perhaps even more so, when things turned nasty so very quickly.
Turning tables in the Temple
turned the tables on Jesus;
turned the crowds into a mob...
Challenging authorities in their own places of power
brought the full weight of their power crashing down on him,
brought betrayal,
brought arrest, and death,
brought a place of rest in a borrowed tomb.
And perhaps, as the stone rolled into place,
blocking out the sun,
and shutting in the Son of God,
perhaps...those who had ears to really hear,
might have heard those words of Isaiah, 
whispering promise,
whispering the prophecy:
‘For I am about to create new heavens 
and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered 
or come to mind but be glad, and rejoice forever in what I am creating.’

Perhaps, if the disciples had picked up the whispers of the ancient promise, 
they may not have been quite so gobsmacked...
But, for them, death was the end.
The final destination.
Nobody comes back from the dead... do they?
And yet:
In the early-dawn of not-yet light,
in a garden where a stone had rolled away from a tomb...
a new thing had taken place:
the powers and principalities had thought they’d laid his ghost to rest;
the disciples were crushed by his death,
and sat in an upper room in hiding, in despair.
Where would they go?
What would they do?
Go back to their old lives?
The nets? The tax collecting?
And Mary’s rushed entry,
her confusion,
her news of his missing body
had created new fear in their midst:
what was going on?
What new thing was this?
And so it transpired:
she was right – the two who had gone to see, came back:
the grave was empty indeed.
As they pondered this turn of events,
Mary, back again in the garden, 
was talking to one she supposed was the gardener...
and then the mist of grief and confusion cleared:
and she saw him for who he was.
And you could almost hear the ancient prophecy
wrap itself around the scene:
‘For I am about to create new heavens 
and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered 
or come to mind but be glad, and rejoice forever in what I am creating.’
...Be glad
...Be glad and rejoice forever...
...Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating...

And what is being created 
is a new heaven
a new earth...
even now –
even though the news brings darkness and despair,
and tries to bring in a kingdom of fear and hatred and suspicion.
Even now –
as the powers that be try to crush the most vulnerable in society
and try to bring in a kingdom of ‘might is right’
or even, ‘white is right’, whilst sowing seeds of division
among people who have more in common than that which differs.
Even now – especially now:
for what is being created is a new Jerusalem:
not of baying crowds,
not of bloody violence
nor political machinations...
the kingdom of heaven on earth is brought in
by the One who set the heavens and the earth a-tremble
when the stone rolled away from the tomb
on that first Easter morning.
The kingdom of heaven on earth is brought in
when the followers of that One continue the work of Him 
who taught us what it is to live:
who taught us how to live:
to roll away the stones that blight the lives of others –
to be bringers of justice and mercy;
to be bringers of compassion and kindness;
to be bringers of love in the loveless places
and to be bringers of light in the darkest places –
For we   need    not    fear:
we follow the Lord of the dance –
the One who defeated death and showed us life:
we hear the whispered words of the ancient prophet
and see the empty garden tomb...
and we can be glad, and rejoice:
for we know the kingdom that he is creating,
the kingdom which we are called to help build:
a kingdom where there shall be no more weeping nor cries of distress;
a kingdom where all shall live full and rich lives;
a kingdom where all shall have enough – more than enough;
and where there shall be no more war,
for it will be a kingdom of peace,
where all shall rejoice and be glad:
where all shall love God and love their neighbour...
... for that is the power and promise of resurrection:
death and destruction don’t have the final word,
for we are an Easter people, 
and ‘alleluia!’ is our song...

Earlier, I talked of questions, of confusion, 
and the big question racing around in the minds 
of Mary and the disciples:
Where is Jesus: where have they put him?
Jesus is risen – they haven’t put him anywhere, 
although they, the authorities, thought they had.
Jesus is risen – 
and his resurrection is simply...
gobsmacking. 
It was to the early disciples.
It still is. ...

We may not have seen the risen Jesus in the garden, like Mary,
but... we have seen the Lord –
in acts of kindness, of giving of self, of warm generous love;
we have seen the Lord every time we have seen the helpers emerge 
out of nowhere in times of crisis, 
bringing comfort, bandaging wounds, 
holding the hands of the dying, 
or grasping the hands of the ones in boats, 
fleeing from war and persecution.
We have seen the Lord.
And because we have, we are to be those who help
to bring restoration, restitution, resurrection.

Last week, as we walked through the story 
of the Jesus’ last hours, I sang – and some of you joined in – 
most of the verses of ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord’
Most...of the verses.
But not the last.
It goes:
Where you there when he rose up from the grave?
Where you there when he rose up from the grave?
Oh-oh sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Where you there when he rose up from the grave?

Let’s sing it everyone... ...

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!  Amen.