EASTER  SUNDAY

Alleluia, Christ is Risen

A worship service was held at 10.30am in the church on Easter Sunday 5 April.  The service was simultaneously broadcast on the Church Facebook page.  You can catch up here for the next four weeks.

The Bible passage was Matthew 28:1-10, and Duncan led and preached.

We joined in the acclamation ‘He is risen indeed’; we sang hymns of resurrection (‘Jesus Christ is risen today’); we shared in Chris’s talk to the children about the hope that we have because Jesus has died for us; and we listened as Duncan preached on the Bible passage.

He emphasised two things from the passage.  The first was that the angel gave the women visiting the tomb a message for the disciples ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see me’. (v8)  Galilee, Duncan pointed out is where the disciples came from. It was very familiar to them, their home. There Jesus would meet them.

The lesson for us, Duncan said, is that we can look for signs of the living Jesus and the new life he brings in the familiar environments of everyday life. Where will we encounter glimpses of the risen Jesus today, this week, in the utterly ordinary?

It seems from the passage, Duncan said, as if the stone blocking the mouth of the burial cave was still in place when the women arrive. The angel rolls it aside not to let Jesus out – for Jesus had already risen – but to let the women see inside, so that they realise the truth of what they are being told, that Jesus is indeed alive.

Duncan’s second lesson for us was that, as we go about our daily lives, looking out for signs of Jesus presence we may not always see much.  But, says Duncan ‘even when it seems that nothing is happening in life, when everything still seems the same, in actual fact resurrection is already happening, new life is already taking place!’

He said ‘We celebrate the awesome reality that even today resurrection is taking place. This is another day of resurrection. Jesus is alive.’

John reflects:  I love Duncan’s challenge to look out for signs of Jesus in the ordinary, and to hold on to the belief that, just as the bulb stirs to life beneath the soil long before anything is seen on the surface, so resurrection is taking place in many unexpected places. We await the moment when the stone is rolled away, when the green shoot breaks through soil when the work of God becomes visible.

I also believe that at times the life of God is at work beneath the surface in our own lives in ways that we are not always aware of until the shoot of springtime joy awakens in our hearts.

And I love that today’s passage did not end with the two Marys being given a message from Jesus. It’s as though Jesus isn’t content with just sending them a message. He comes to meet him, and reassures him.  And so, this Easter, as we walk away from the empty tomb, our lips may have said ‘He is risen indeed’, but our hearts may have returned to Galilee uncertain of where to look for his presence.  Perhaps he will draw near to us himself, in one of those moments of glorious clarity, and say to us ‘Here I am! Don’t be afraid!’

And I wonder if we may be called to be angels (or ‘messengers’), bearing news for those who look for Jesus, our words and our faith rolling away the stone from their eyes and hearts, our lips encouraging them to go and find the one who awaits them?

Happy Easter!