The Resurrection

1994 (Year B), 11 April

St Peter de Beauvoir Town

One Easter, several years ago the Bishop of Durham got into lots of trouble by suggesting that the Resurrection was a conjuring trick with bones. I’ve been waiting ever since then to upstage the good Bishop and at last an opportunity has presented itself.

Now a couple of you have seen this before, and to you I apologise, but to this vast majority it will be completely new, but first I need the help of the traditional beautiful assistant.

Eat your heart out Bishop of Durham!

It is a trick, an illusion, nothing more. You’ll remember it, particularly the parents and godparents of the children soon to be baptised, because in years to come you’ll say, ‘Do you remember that Vicar at the Baptism he stuck knives into his daughter’s head! What a wally!’ But apart from that it’s hardly memorable. If you’re good at it, then you can earn a living – just about. It’s not something that you would ever risk your life for.

I hope that the children soon to be baptised realise that Easter is about the death of a man. Not a trick by God. That when Jesus cried out from the cross on Good Friday, ‘It is finished!’ then it really was. There was no more to be done and there was absolutely no way back. He had believed in God as far as he could, right up to the end. And he had died. It’s true he died as he had lived, trusting in God, but he had died and he died in agony. His friends ran away terrified and totally demoralised.

At that point, on Good Friday, when a man could do no more, God acted and Easter began. The death wasn’t erased in some magical way, a trick performed by some bizarre Divine Magician, nor do I think that Jesus had been given some sneak preview into an unforeseen glory. There was an end to Jesus. He died and God acted.

And when God acted the disciples were transformed from a group of terrified friends, who had fled their leader, into a people prepared to die for the truth. And so it has continued throughout the ages, until now when four more people will join the church when they are baptised in a couple of minutes.

The children brought to baptism on this day of all days are not here as a result of a trick performed by God nearly two thousand years ago. We will not renew our baptism vows in a few minutes purely because God magically brought a dead person to life. People throughout Christian history have been prepared to die for what they know to be true.

And the truth is that just as when Jesus had done all he could and could do no more. God acted. The truth is that when we have done all we can do and there is nothing, literally nothing left, God acts; and brings our resurrection.

The truth is that by emptying ourselves we can be filled with God. Our hope for these children and for ourselves is that we in turn might reach our end and our newness and be filled with God. AMEN