Easter Day
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Readings: Acts 10: 34-43 and Matthew 28: 1-10
On 16th February 1977, the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Reverend Janani Luwum, was killed in a car crash, aged 56. At least, that was the news broadcast to the nation. But it quickly became apparent that Luwum had been killed on the explicit orders of President Idi Amin. The Archbishop had stood up to the President and had criticised the way the country had been turned into a police state, with the murder or torture of those opposed to the president’s chaotic and brutal rule.
Not a very happy story for Easter Day, you might be thinking. But what happened afterwards was truly amazing. A memorial service for the Archbishop was forbidden. Amin couldn’t allow a funeral service with a body, because that body, when later found, was bullet-ridden. It would quickly have become clear that there was no car accident. Not many people believed it in the first place.
Although a funeral service had been forbidden, on the Sunday following Janani Luwum’s death, 4,500 people gathered at Namirembe Cathedral, where a grave had been prepared. But there was no body to be found. Not the least discouraged by this turn of events, the presiding bishop reminded the huge congregation how there had been an empty grave on the first Easter morning, and no body – but a risen Christ! And soon the huge crowd was singing the Uganda Martyrs’ hymn, and chanting “He is not here, he is risen. He is not here, he is risen!” The atmosphere of grief was transformed into one of peace, joy and hope for the future. The authorities had rather scored an own goal.
No doubt the Archbishop’s family missed him dreadfully; the Church would continue to mourn the loss of its leader and be outraged at the manner of his death. But they put their trust in the power, the mystery, and the hope of the resurrection.
It defies all logic. Dancing around a dead man’s empty grave singing “He is risen” defies logic. God’s power is not chained or restrained by logic. But if you want to rely on logic, it is instructive to note that nobody has been able to disprove the resurrection of Jesus. In his book The Sanity of Belief, Simon Edwards set out minimal facts about Jesus Christ that virtually every serious historian acknowledges. Firstly, that Jesus Christ died by crucifixion. Secondly, that his disciples genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them on a number of occasions; and, thirdly, that the early Church exploded in numbers soon after Jesus’ death. So if the resurrection happened, it would fit these agreed historical facts perfectly.
But what are the alternatives? That the disciples could have deceived everyone? No. Besides the fact that they would have to steal the body to hoax a resurrection, they refused to back down on their claim that he had risen, even after persecution, torture or execution. Nothing proves sincerity more than martyrdom. The disciples had nothing to gain from making up a lie about Jesus’ resurrection, but everything to lose.
You may have heard some people suggest that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, but somehow survived, and revived himself in the tomb, or his disciples revived him. Just think about the nature of the vicious treatment Jesus was subjected to, and the hard facts of crucifixion. Not a credible theory.
Some kind of hallucination, then, when individual disciples saw him after the resurrection? That could account for appearances to individuals, but not to group appearances. St. Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians, makes a point of telling us that Jesus appeared to over 500 people at once.
One could develop all these arguments about the fact of the resurrection – for or against, but to my mind the strongest evidence in favour is the rapid spread of the Church. If their leader was dead and buried as the detractors say, how did that defeat generate such huge and positive energy?
It seems significant that in all the resurrection accounts, Jesus appears only to his followers, as we heard from the Acts reading. The writer, probably Luke, says “God raised him on the third day, and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses.”
But notice that many of those to whom Jesus appeared were not full of joy or expectation at the time of the resurrection. In fact, a common feature is that those to whom the risen Jesus appears are portrayed as being in a negative mood of some kind or other. The women have come to anoint the body; Mark says they were terrified. Mary Magdalene in the garden is distraught; the disciples are afraid in the upper room; the two on the road to Emmaus are very depressed, and Thomas is in doubt. And twice in our passage today, Jesus tells the two Marys “Do not be afraid.” He specifically says that to the women; not to the guards, who shook and became like dead men at what had happened. The implication seems to be that it is fine for the guards to be afraid, but not the women. At such a momentous event, one might well be afraid, or at least overcome with awe and wonder, but Jesus calls the women out of that to new life with him and for him.
The great spiritual writer Gerard Hughes suggests that we can only come to know the risen Christ when we have experienced some kind of death, disillusionment with ourselves or others, some loss, some bereavement, sense of fear, hopelessness or meaninglessness and have NOT tried to anaesthetize ourselves against it.
The Church can sometimes speak of Easter as though it were a neat resolution to everything that came before. The thinking might be – ‘Good Friday is terrible, but Sunday clears it up. Death is dreadful, but resurrection tidies the narrative.’ Jesus’ risen body comes with the wounds still visible. Thomas wanted to be sure about that. The body that appears to the disciples is still the body that was broken. The resurrection is not the denial of pain, but the redemption of it. Death does not have the last word, even though its marks are still visible. Perhaps this is why Easter continues to speak deeply to people who are faithful, but bruised.
One final feature of the resurrection appearances is that they all pretty much give a commission. In our passage today, ’Go quickly and tell..’ In the final verses of the gospel – ‘Go and make disciples.’ In John’s gospel, Jesus breathes on the disciples and sends them out. And the commission remains with us now.
Back in one of my previous parishes, there were two elderly widowers, both Rotarians, who were very practical men, willing to undertake any little job in the church. They always sat in the back row on a Sunday morning and were a bit of a comedy act like Laurel and Hardy. One of them, John, received a cancer diagnosis, and went out of circulation for a bit. I asked the other, Bill, to look after a repair job in the vestry, and, going into church one morning, was surprised to find both of them at work. Bill said, ‘I went round to John, and told him, ’Come on, Bilke. You’re not moping around here all day any longer. We’ve got work to do.” And so have we.
We have a proclamation to make today; that Jesus Christ is risen; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; that Jesus Christ is present in his Church and among his people for all time. So may we go out in that confidence, proclaiming the gospel and living it out by who we are, by what we believe, and by demonstrating that the Spirit of the living Christ dwells in us, and makes a real difference to our lives.