As I looked
through today’s scripture, thrilling as it does with the resurrection, I was
thinking about next Sunday’s annual church meeting and our aspirations for
church growth.
Don’t we need to be more of a community of the
resurrection, I thought, an Easter People?
When you come as
I hope you will come next Sunday to own your church and elect its lay officers
I hope that in the reports you’ll receive you’ll catch more than a glimmer of the
resurrection.
People get
intrigued into church more than they get persuaded by good fellowship,
intelligent preaching and sound liturgy – and there’s nothing more intriguing
than what is seen to conquer death.
Let’s look back
into the eucharist booklet and have another look at the readings. First that
passage from Acts 3. It follows on from the healing of a lame man who went
leaping and bounding into the Temple. How intriguing that must have been! Something worth following – someone worth following! Let’s read v16 together when you find it: To this we are witnesses...by faith in the
name of Jesus, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know;
and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the
presence of all of you.
When God is at
work people get drawn in and God is at
work here at St Giles! People are talking of him being with them, not least
through their trials, as they live with health or relationship or employment
challenges. It’s always heartening to me as parish priest to hear of
resurrection occurring, of the risen Christ coming to bear on the lives of
parishioners very often through the bearing of suffering or humiliation.
Then the second reading
from 1 John 3. I always find the first letter of John a real tonic and often
pick it up and read it when my faith flags. Nothing to beat God’s word for promise and encouragement
– would that we were all more immersed in it! Let’s read v2: Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we
will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is
revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
What a promise! Our longing for the Lord is pivotal in attaining
what’s promised. Beryl’s memorial eucharist yesterday recalled her desire for
God all through her life expressed in steadfast attendance at the eucharist. In
the word and bread and wine of the eucharist we behold Christ veiled – we could
not face him if he wasn’t – but then, on that day of universal resurrection when he is
revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
As a church we
need to build more of the eager longing for the Lord 1 John 3 speaks of, a
longing that is infectious and that leads beyond this world. How blessed we are
as a church to have members who long for the word and the sacrament and for
Christ in one another. How much we’ve got to learn from one another
spiritually! May Jesus intrigue us through one another!
Let’s end by
looking at today’s third reading from St Luke’s Gospel Chapter 24 in which Our
Lord emphasises the physicality of the resurrection, showing his wounded yet
glorified hands and feet and eating a piece of broiled fish. On the first those
who were at the Easter Vigil will recall that when we blessed the Pascal Candle
we placed four nails in its side to represent the physical crucifixion.
Why is this? Well
let’s read together verses 46-47. 46 and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the
Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
The point Our Lord makes is the same
point St Peter makes in the first reading: it
is written, that the Messiah is to suffer.
The atheist writer Albert Camus once
debated the resurrection with French Dominicans. He complained that the
resurrection was an unreal and unsatisfactory happy ending. They answered by
pointing to this text. God came to share our suffering which served to expiate
the sin of the world. No suffering we have to endure is now strange to God. As
one of Wesley’s hymns puts it: Those dear
tokens of his passion still his dazzling body bears. Cause of endless
exultation to his ransomed worshippers. With what rapture gaze we on those
glorious scars.
It is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise
from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is
to be proclaimed in his name.
This morning the risen Christ
invites us once more to repent, to turn to him for forgiveness, so that his
light may shine in us and through us.
St Giles as a light house? Maybe, if you and I become lighthouses, little candles
lit from the Easter Candle? Lit with this faith – that the only meaningful thing in life is what conquers death, and not
what but who!
In Jesus Christ we gain not ideas,
doctrines, rules but Life - and where
that life is to be found – as I believe it is more and more at St Giles –
people who’ve it will infect others who’ve yet to find it!
‘The source of false religion is the
inability to rejoice, or rather, the refusal of joy, whereas joy is absolutely
essential because it is without any doubt the fruit of God’s presence.’ So
writes Alexander Schmemann. So then - our focus this Sunday in Easter
season is on rejoicing for eucharist
and Christian life itself means no less than thanks and praise. Christ is risen! ‘In his, in God’s
presence is the fullness of joy and at his right hand there are pleasures for
evermore’ says the Psalmist. Alleluia
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!
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