King's College Commemoration "The truth will make you free"

A sermon on John 8:31-37

As you walk up the steps and into the front door of Kings if you look up you will see carved into the stone the words “The truth will make you free.” It is a great saying, a hopeful saying, it is the motto of this college.

Tonight as we celebrate commemoration, remembering with one another, things we may have forgotten I have deliberately taken us back to the origin of those words.  They were read to us tonight from John’s gospel:

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

The truth that Jesus was speaking of is a truth that is connected to Jesus and is an absolute claim about the nature of truth.

I suspect though when many people read the words of the King’s motto “The truth will make you free” disconnected from origins we are probably thinking of a different definition of the word truth.  I suspect a definition that we may discover does not offer us the freedom we think.

Let me briefly explore two approaches to the truth that may be less helpful than we might suspect.

The first is the idea that the truth that will make us free is knowledge.  This is after all a college located in a centre for learning. 

There can be no doubt that the search for fact in history and in science has lead us to make great discoveries as human beings.

Yet the discovery of so-called truth has to always be tempered by three things.

Firstly, Michael Polanyi the Chemist and philosopher in his great book “Personal Knowledge” reminds us that all truth is subjective because “we must inevitably see the universe from a centre lying within ourselves.”

Secondly, as the Physicist Carol Rovelli points out the notion of something being “scientifically proved” is nearly an oxymoron and that “The very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt.”

Finally, even when science discovers something that is occurring around with the best research and evidence available science like most things now is treated as a matter of belief if that truth is inconvenient, as Al Gore pointed out in his presentation of the issue of climate change. 

Equating scientific fact or knowledge with truth does not necessarily set us free: from the fact we can only tell our stories through an anthropocentric lens; from the need to continue to search more deeply for more answers; and, from the fact that even when the best knowledge and evidence is presented people still make a choice to engage in that new knowledge of reject it.

Another view of the truth prevalent within our society is the notion that the truth is about exposing lies and deception.

There is a pivotal scene in the old film “A Few Good Men”.  Tom Cruise has Jack Nicholson in the witness stand and pushes him to reveal what happened.  Nicholson’s angry response is well known, “You want the truth! You can’t handle the truth!”  As the ugly truth comes out I don’t think anyone is set free – there are uncomfortable and incomprehensible consequences for the characters in the film.

Exposing the deception and the hidden stories does not necessarily set us free.  As a student history I recall Robert Hughes significant work on early Australian history called “The Fatal Shore”.  The book told us uncomfortable truths about our origins including the frontier wars, enslavement and genocide committed against the indigenous people of this land.  It is a history we still struggle with us a nation despite the PrimeMinister’s apology delivered by Kevin Rudd.

The same is true for the history of this college community and even its current reality.  Whilst “Men and Masters” the history book of King’s College covers some of the struggles and successes of this college there are many stories it avoids telling.  Stories of what can only be described as hazing, stories of violence and bravado against other colleges, and stories that continue within the wider community of misogyny and sexism within the college.  Telling these stories may be confronting, may cause us to be defensive, may be a truth we can’t or don’t want to handle – but ultimately is not a truth that sets us free.

So where does this leave us with our saying our motto on this night of commemoration of the college.  We remember with one another the transcendent connection and vision that lies behind this saying.

Jesus said: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

What is this truth if it is not some sort of scientific fact or intellectual insight?  What is this truth if it is not an expose of the stories we hide and avoid and cover up?

If you were to pick up a Bible and read a few pages on in John’s gospel what you would read is these words which are also spoken by Jesus: “I am the way, the truth and the life now one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6)

In these words we discover something of a surprising idea the ‘truth’ is Jesus himself, who says, “I am the truth.”

Truth is embodied in Jesus, it takes on flesh, it is incarnated.  In this claim that Jesus makes we are challenged with the notion that not only is there no inconsistencies between his words and his actions, but that he is also the source of the key to understanding ourselves, this world that we live in and God.

To be freed by Jesus is to be set free from the delusion that we can domesticate knowledge and to be set free from the self-deception and fallibilities we all share.

From a Christian perspective knowing the truth is ultimately about knowing Jesus.    

This does not mean that Christians are perfect people and know everything and never lie, rather it means that instead of locating the concept of truth in an abstract idea we locate truth in a man, Jesus from Nazareth, who lived, and died, and rose again so that we might be set free to live an abundant life.  As Christians we seek after the truth by following Jesus and this sets us free.

“The truth will make you free.”

On page 199 of "Men and Masters" it says that the Chapel sits in the college like a lost soul. On nights when we come and worship here together I believe the soul of the college stirs.  And I pray that each one of you here might remember that we have already been set free by Jesus who is the truth.  But more than that as the soul of the college stirs so too your soul might be stirred and that you will hear the invitation that comes to us from the founders of this college to see beyond any parochialism and insularity of this community and become one who knows Jesus as the truth and to follow him who came to make us all free.

Fishing, fires & faith

Going fishing or gathering around a fire

I wonder what your expectations of coming to worship this morning were.

It might sound a strange question but I wonder whether you were going fishing or coming to sit by the fire?

In the story that we heard from John’s gospel that we heard today we encounter Peter and some of Jesus other disciples making what might seem a somewhat bizarre decision to go fishing.

In the previous verses of John’s gospel we have seen Peter run to the empty tomb and encounter the risen Christ in a locked room. Not once but twice.  Jesus has breathed on him with the power of the Holy Spirit and uttered those words of commissioning “As the Father sent me so I send you”.

Do we expect that Jesus was sending Peter back to his old life – fishing?  Really?  But that’s what Peter decides to do.

Peter has just spent the last three years of his life away from the nets and the boats to follow Jesus.  He has walked with Jesus, following his itinerant teacher.  He has seen his miracles; watched healings; seen the dead raised; heard parables; done miracles himself; and, been amazed at the presence and power of God.  He has also denied Jesus and seen him die.

I have a sense that Peter was so overwhelmed with his encounters with the risen Jesus he wanted to get some perspective, to do something he knew and understand.  ‘Let’s go fishing’.

And the other disciples jump on board, quite literally and they head out onto the sea.

Fishing, especially fishing overnight, is one of those occupations that creates space for a person, creates time.

These were fisherman by trade and so probably by birth.  Fishing for them was natural.  Fishing involves patience and boredom and stillness and probably companionship as well.  There is time to think and to just be.

In some ways it was a good choice for Peter to make.  To be with his friends on the water through the night may have been like wrapping an old security blanket around himself.

There was time to reflect and maybe talk but possibly also to just be in that comfortable space of silence and companionship.

Of course we hear that these men out on their boat did not catch anything, which makes this a fishing story I can relate to pretty closely but maybe catching something wasn’t really the point.  It was more about being together in the face of trying to understand God and the world and death and life and resurrection.

And maybe for some of you this is what worship is life sometimes.  A space that involves patience and boredom and solitude and silence and companionship and grounding in something familiar.  A place in which you through the line in or the net overboard and ponder God and the world and death and life and resurrection.

Maybe the disciples were wondering where Jesus was, maybe they were still trying to process whether they could trust their encounter and maybe we wonder too.  When will we experience Jesus, when will see the divine.

‘Let’s go fishing’. 

While Peter and his friends are out on the water something else quite astounding is occurring.  On the beach Jesus, resurrected from the dead, is doing something very earthy.  Jesus is collecting kindling, making a fire and preparing a meal: bread and fish on the beach.

It struck me this week what an extraordinarily ordinary thing this was for the resurrected Jesus to do.  He prepared a meal for his friends.

Whilst the miracle of the catch and Peter’s reaction, diving off the boat to come and join Jesus on the shore, speak of the wonder of the resurrection the invitation of the fire is a moment for us to think upon a bit more closely.

As the disciples come and gather on the beach they come into a place of companionship with the risen Christ as the disciples are confronted once again by the mystery of life after death.  Here by the fire the disciples continue to display a level of reticence to name the mystery of Jesus presence with them as he offers to them: hospitality, friendship, warmth, welcome, teaching, presence and resurrection.

In this moment of mystery and grace Jesus offers something entirely worldly as well as a glimpse of the mystery of God’s love: death is not the final word.

For me there is a sense that gathering in worship as we do some of us may also be coming to sit by that fire.  Not knowing quite what to say because we are in presence of the mystery f the risen Christ. But, wanting to bask in God’s hospitality, to be in the presence of the risen Christ, to gather by the fire with our friends and listen to Jesus.

Jesus is present here now and offering that hospitality and this space and time in which we gather should always have a sense of the warmth and welcome of the fire on that beach so long ago.

Yet as Jesus followers, sitting on the beach with Jesus is not all that it is about.  When Jesus appeared to the disciples in the locked room Jesus empowered the disciples with the Holy Spirit in order that they might be sent into the world and also on the beach Jesus confronts his closest follower Peter.

Peter do you love me? Yes Lord? Feed my sheep!

Peter do you love me? Yes Lord? Feed my sheep!

Peter do you love me? Yes Lord? Feed my sheep!

Jesus injunction to feed his sheep is an injunction to carry on Jesus ministry.  A ministry that involved reconciliation, healing, forgiveness, mercy, compassion and resurrection!

One could even argue a ministry of fire making.  The hospitality shared on the beach with the disciples is the hospitality of God that stretches out to all people.

As followers we are called to the task of gathering wood, lighting fires, creating a space of hospitality where others might also encounter the risen Christ.

So I wonder where you at today in your faith? Are you going fishing? Sitting by the fire in awe? Or ready to go out and make fires elsewhere? Or at the least to invite others to gather here with us.

Wherever you are at, know this, the resurrected Christ is already at work.  Preparing places for us to meet with him and experience God’s love and hospitality.

This is indeed good news. 

Stop doubting and start believing. Stop fearing start sharing peace.

Stop doubting and start believing. Stop fearing start sharing peace.

The interaction between Jesus and Thomas is one of the most known stories of the New Testament Still today most people will use the phrase “doubting Thomas” to describe someone whether the are Christians or not.

Yet the story we heard today begins at a different point – the disciples locked in a room fearing. Fearing the Jews.

This morning I want us to reflect on both of these aspects of the story fearing and doubting.  Emotions and actions that are countered by Jesus’ presence in which sharing peace and witnessing in faith supplant the fearing and doubting and so become the appropriate response.

To begin with we will look through the window into the room where the disciples had locked themselves and think about the story as it was told by John.  We will then look into the window of our own lives at the fearing and doubting that continue to plague us in our faith.

As we engage this story we will also contemplate the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, the meaning of the peace he declares and the response peace sharing and witnessing in faith.

The community of Christians that John was writing his gospel for was very different from us.  It was around 60 years since the event of Jesus’ death and resurrection had occurred.  A few generations had passed and followers of Jesus had experienced a difficult time.

Right from the outset there was tension with the Temple authorities.  The first followers of Jesus as the Christ came from within Jewish community and it was only in the decades that followed that gentiles began to become followers of Christ as well.  This tension was continuing to be played out in John’s time as Christianity had been emerging from being a sect within Judaism to a religion in its own right.

Alongside, this in the mid-60s and then again in the late 80s and early 90s two Roman Emperor’s, Nero and then Domitian, specifically targeted the Christians.

The imagery of the disciples locked in the room for fear of the Jews is a story that would have had a great deal of meaning for the persecuted Christians in John’s community: fearing possibly the Jews and the Romans.  The disciples were in hiding and the community that John wrote for may have well felt a connection to the kind of fear the disciples felt.

Despite having heard the news of the resurrection the disciples continued to be afraid.  They may have thought that their lives, like Jesus’ life, was at risk.  The reality is their lives probably were at risk but Jesus’ resurrection was a sign that the worst that could be done could not hold God’s loves back.

And so it is that despite the fear and the locked doors Jesus comes and stands among his disciples and declares “Peace be with you” – “Shalom”. 2000 years on I think it is sometimes hard to capture the significance Jesus’ words carry.  As Jesus declares “Shalom” there are undertones of the Jewish celebration of Yom Kippur and there overtones of the promised peace that God desires for all peoples.  Peace with God and peace with one another – stop fearing for here in Christ’s presence there is peace.

Fear can be a powerful motivating force for any of us.  Though we do not meet this day behind locked doors, we meet in a building set aside for Christian worship with the doors flung wide open in welcome we can and do lock the doors of our faith.  We can be fearful that beyond this building or even with one another sharing our faith might not be such a good thing.

Consider some of these fears we might have in being open about our faith.

We might fear ridicule and persecution due to our association with particular people who claim to be Christians, or because the history within our church, or simply because there are those out there who want to undermine us.

I have to admit when I hear that Donald Trump is being supported by American Evangelicals I fear for the Church and am reticent to own my faith.  Trump’s politics is built on fear and hate and violence none of which reflects the Christ that I have come to know in the gospels. 

I know that within the church, not just the Catholic Church, there has been an abominable history of child abuse.  It is part of every denomination and I have been personally attacked for continuing to be a Christian because of the atrocities committed by those who follow Christ.

In many Christian circles the rejection of scientific understandings and research is simply embarrassing and peddling ignorance simply feeds the militant atheists who attack the church.

The news cycle feeds us with continued information about terrorists who attack Christians and so we might also feel a personal sense of fear around this issue as well.

Because of these issues, among others, we might fear being socially ostracised as followers of Jesus or fear our ability to defend or articulate or faith adequately in the face of an onslaught of questions.

It is easier for us to lock our faith inside than be open about it and declare and defend our faith when called upon to.  Yet, this decision can allow the ignorance and misinformation about Jesus and his followers to continue.

The resurrected Christ comes into our midst through the power of the Holy Spirit, just as he did so long ago, and speaks into our fearing and says to us Peace be with you, Shalom!  This is a word of hope and comfort and affirmation we need to hear as well.  We need to hear it as much as the first disciples needed to hear it, as much as John’s community, stop fearing – peace be with you.

Each week as a congregation we take the time to share the peace but I often wonder whether we are really able to convey the depth of the peace being offered by God and the peace each one of us needs.  Peace which quells our sense of guilt over things that gave gone awry in our lives; peace that stills our anxious hearts over the worries which beset us; peace that builds bridges between us when we find it difficult to get on with one another; peace that gives us hope beyond the suffering in this world; peace in a coming kingdom what we cannot see but only glimpse. Peace, shalom! Peace that comes down from heaven and helps us transcend our fears.

Stop fearing – know Christ’s peace. 

This brings me to the second movement in the story, it is that well know interaction with Thomas – stop doubting and start believing.  The end of John’s gospel is clear: John records his gospel that people might believe that Jesus is the son of God but in this moment Thomas simply did not believe that Jesus had risen from among the dead.  He did not believe the testimony of the other disciples.

His doubting came from the lack of personal experience and encounter. How often do any of us say something along these lines, “Unless I see it for myself I won’t believe it.”

Thomas’s doubting and ours springs from within us:

·         doubting because we have not seen

·         doubting because we were not there

·         doubting because we have no experience

·         doubting because we do not understand

I have often preaching that our doubting is a good thing because doubts can lead us to questions and lead us to grow in our faith and understanding.  This conviction remains true – doubting can lead us to grow but when we look at this passage the response to doubting is not knowing or understanding but believing.

We are not told whether Thomas actually touched Jesus and had such a tangible and earthy experience of Jesus’ but Thomas responds with a confession of faith.

“My Lord and my God.”

Thomas confessing of Jesus as Lord and God transcends the moment and in some way retains something of the mystery of believing.  Believing is not about knowing everything or being able to prove it. It is simply what it claims it is: ‘belief’ which is defined as “an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.”

Believing may involve placing our trust in something that is otherworldly, that is not provable, but it does not have to be completely blind or ignorant either.

The notion of believing can sit comfortably alongside the notion of continuing to grow and even doubt.  Rather in believing in Jesus our lives and our questions bceome shaped around the one in whom we believe.

To be a confessing people, to say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God”, is not to make some ambit claim at knowing everything but is to place our trust and focus in life in something beyond the parameters of our personal experiences.

We, like Thomas, may struggle with the lack of personal encounter, or understanding, or proof, yet the peace of God comes among us and we can move from doubting to believing.

Finally, after declaring the peace to the disciples Jesus breathes on them with the Holy Spirit and sends them into the world. 

This sending of the disciples is I believe about sending them to be bearers of the ‘shalom’ he has shared with them.  The disciples become apostles, sent into the world, to be about the business of peace sharing.

Sharing peace between peoples who find themselves estranged from God, estranged from community and estranged from each other.  To do so would mean transcending their fears and doubts and it means the same for us.

When we consider the world around us and the division and pain that continue to abide in the world the work of peace sharing is before us.  Peace sharing within the difficulties and brokenness of our own families.  Peace sharing between communities separated by race or religion.  Peace sharing between communities dominated by fear, doubt and hate. Peace sharing so that we might live as one humanity loving one another.

What dominates us? Fearing and doubting or God’s peace and our belief.

Having shared the peace here together, at the end of the service we will be sent out, to go about our daily lives sharing this peace of God with others.  May God give you strength to transcend the locked rooms of your fears and doubts and declare the ‘shalom’ of God through your words and actions. 

Mystery and hope: Sorrow and love flow mingled down.

So why are you here?

Why did you come to church on Good Friday? 

Why did you come to listen to this story of a man who dies on a cross?

This story of Jesus’ death is a story filled with: betrayal, denial, indifference, torture, brutality and deep sorrow.

What sort of masochistic tendencies do we have as people to want to embrace this macabre spectacle? 

What brings us together on this day?

Why are you here?

Why am I here?

One of the reasons that I remain a Christian; one of the reasons I continue in ministry; one of the reasons I am here this day and this story remains important to me; is that I am continuing to search for meaning in life and in death.  I am trying to understand the purpose of my life and a sense of meaning for the life of the world.

The story of Jesus as the centre point in history gives to us an overarching narrative, a grad story, a story of a life lived in the world that can help us explore the meaning and purposes of our own lives.

This day is not about having all the answers but sitting with uncomfortable questions in hope before the mystery of God; before the mystery of life and the mystery that is death.

Each one of you as you contemplate Jesus hanging on the cross, as you consider Jesus’ death, will be connecting that death to your own life.  Jesus’ death might evoke a range of emotions for you.  It may even give you glimpses into the meaning of your life of the world.  Each one of you will have a sense that as you witness this event something is occurring for you at a personal level and in this you are given purpose and meaning for your own life.

But here on the sacred ground of this day, as we sit and contemplate Jesus life and death, we should be wary of thinking that we have got God’s plan tamed.

It is too easy for us to move quickly and say ‘yes we understand the violence and hope of this day’.  To suggest that you or I have fully understood the nuances of this story is to domesticate it to something which suits us. 

You and I have been filled up with interpretations of the atonement and simplifications of God’s plan in such a way that the mystery of life and death and eternal life is overtaken.  The answers we arrive at when we say that this death means good news can often be alienating and confusing to others.

Our simplification of the story can just as much exclude others from it as it can invite them in to it.  Our simplification of the story can avoid the hard questions we still have or at least that we should be asking of ourselves.

So often our understanding of the story conforms God to our existence. It makes sense to me, it makes sense to you, but it makes little sense when weighed against the fullness of God and the mysteries of life and death.

Jesus death, the cross, defies our domestication. 

Life, suffering in life, death and what lies beyond death are mysterious.

I am not suggesting that God does not have an overarching story or that this story is not central to who we are.  Rather, what I am saying is that we can only see and understand this story of Jesus’ death and our place in it in a very limited way from our human perceptions.

For me on Good Friday we are called to step back.  We are confronted with mystery. We are onlookers at this violent moment in history. We, like the disciples and the women, like Pilate and his soldiers, like Caiaphas and his priests, are trying to make sense of our place in the world.  We are trying to make sense of life in the face of suffering and cruelty and death.

Why are we here?  We are here because we still have questions. What meaning and purpose is there here at the cross?  What purpose does my life serve?  What meaning will my death have?  How can I make sense of suffering in this world?  The suffering we cause each other and the suffering that appears to be ay worst the result of decisions made by a capricious God, or, at best, completely meaningless and random.

We look on but we want to look away.  No theology can encapsulate this mystery well enough.  No explanation covers the whole gambit of what is occurring.  Our human minds cannot contain the enormity of this event, of death.  Of the death of God.  Sorrow and love flow mingled down as we who watch on are swept up into the emotions of this day.

Is there someone to blame?  Can we point a finger?  Historically Christians have blamed the Romans, have blamed Judas, have blamed the Jews and have even blamed each other and ourselves.  And when this hasn’t worked we have reduced it to God’s responsibility – we have blamed God’s decisions and methods.  But the suffering of Jesus, the suffering of those who seem to die needlessly, should not be simply causally related as if there is someone to be held to account.  

The God who stopped Abraham from killing Isaac is the same God who declared that he does not desire sacrifice.  Why then would we even think God would sacrifice his son?  Why then would we distort the words of the Psalm to suggest God would turn away from Jesus on the cross?

Jesus had shared a deep secret with his followers and with us:  he and the Father are one.  Whilst Jesus guttural cry of desolation rings out God is present – the Psalm speaks to us of hope, “he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.”  The story of the cross is the story of God with us, sharing in suffering and death, entering into the mystery of mortality.  God is with us.

Is there guilt? Maybe.  And maybe there should be.  Jesus’ death is about setting you and I free from guilt and sin so maybe guilt is not quite right but when I look upon the world and into my life suffering is all around us.  I know the words that I have said which have torn others down rather than build them up.  I know the people I have neglected to respond to though I am aware of their deep needs.  I look upon humanity and I see our tribalism, our greed, our hunger to preserve our way of life even if it costs others.  The politics and the religion swirling about Jesus’ death swirl around us still and more than one life is lost in this gyre.  If looking at the cross with a sense of guilt causes you or I to question our own lives, to change who we are, to become fully human and to love others then maybe guilt is not a bad emotion to have on this day.

Is there confusion at the cross? Confusion when we see death?  Yes, and yes, and yes again.  Who can explain to the people of Brussels why they have to mourn the loss of so many?  Who can tell why a child dies of cancer or some other disease?  Who can give a reason for our inhumane decisions that lead people to suicide in refugee detention centres?  Who knows why the grief of watching a parent, a spouse, a sibling or a child die has to be played out again and again so painfully?  The cross does not answer all these questions and we must be wary of our platitudes but if it is God who hangs there in Christ’s body then maybe, just maybe there is hope in knowing this God who knows how we suffer as he dies on the cross.

The emotions of the cross overwhelm us because here we are confronted by and contemplate life and death in all its fullness.  Where is God in this moment?  Where is our Creator?

“I and the Father are one”.

If this event is the moment of God’s death then no explanation is adequate. No attempt to comprehend this mystery will suffice.  Yet somewhere, somewhere, deep within ourselves we know there is love and there is hope in this story.

Yes, there is sorrow; yes there is fear; and there is guilt; and there is confusion. But more than that, there is hope; and, there is love.

What do we come for?  Why are we here? Why on this so-called ‘good’ Friday? Why did you come?  Why did I?

We long for meaning. We long for hope.  We long to understand the purpose of our lives and more importantly the purpose of our deaths.

On this day of mystery, of life and of suffering and of death, we cling to this mysterious hope:

“He did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.”

Love and sorrow flow mingled down from our God, who is broken and dying on the cross and it touches our lives.  It sneaks in to our souls.  Grace and mercy in the moment of death.  Is it any wonder then with this hope that the words of the Psalmist ring so true on this day, “I shall live for him”.

No easy answers, no complete explanations, faith in life and death: I shall live for him.  Amen.

Ripples of the Resurrection

Easter Day

For many of us the resurrection of Jesus is an intensely personal thing.  In our lives we have encountered the good news of Jesus for ourselves and we have found hope that in Jesus God was doing something wonderful for us.  We have felt the power of the resurrection, we have contemplated its mystery and its depth – there has been a moment of revelation and of hope.  Resurrection is God’s response to Jesus’ death.  

Whilst we might celebrate our place as recipients of this good news we should remember that what God was doing had implications for the whole creation and so on this day we are called to reflect on how far the ripples of the resurrection might reach.  

On the same day that Mary and the women found themselves going to the tomb far away on the northern coast, of the place we now call Wales, the sun rose over a small village of Celts. They had heard the rumours of the Romans.  They even had a few trade items which had made their way across Briton and into their small village.  The men and women got up to go about their daily work, coming out of their wattle and daub huts to face the cold morning air.  A child could be heard crying and a dog howled in the distance.  Thousands of miles away the women found the tomb open and wondered at this mystery but in this Celtic village no soul was stirred by the miraculous news and no one in this place would even hear the story of Jesus resurrection for almost 200 years.

Within the tomb the women were greeted by an angel, a messenger, who asked them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” But the question was not heard half way across the world near the Ganges River where some farmers from the Kushana Kingdom gathered in their crops from the field.  On the day the women puzzled over the angel’s words the Kushana toiled under the hot sun. They had no mind for the God that Jesus called Father. They were not to hear about Jesus or his resurrection in the Eastern reaches of India for many a century, even though Thomas is said to have arrived in India in the year of our Lord 52, Anno Domini. 

The women wandered away from the tomb and back to the disciples whilst on a southern island continent the Jagera people fished in the river not far from where we meet today.  The fishermen had a strong sense of connection to the land, spiritually they understood themselves to be part of the land.  They had a deep sense of connection to the creation and to their ancestors that had been in the area for generations that stretched beyond their memories.  It would be another 1800 years before the news of Jesus resurrection reached them through a conquering race who saw the Jagera people as less than human.  As the women shared their news with Peter and the other disciples the strongest emotion was disbelief. 

Peter made his way to the tomb to find it empty whilst on the same day in South America the great cities of the Mayan culture thrived.  Children played whilst women watched over them.  Men hunted and collected crops under the same sun that beat down on Peter as he ran to the tomb.  For the Mayan culture the cycle of life continued birth and life and death merged into an eternal process of existence and it was 1500 years before anyone here would know anything about Peter’s confusion and elation.

I could go on with such stories.  Stories that remind us of cultures and peoples who knew nothing of Jesus death and suspected resurrection from the moment it happened to the centuries that followed.  But the question lies before us how did the ripples of the resurrection flow out to impact the lives of these peoples as well.  And how does the resurrection of Jesus roll down to us through the centuries?

What is clear in the stories of the day of resurrection is that the disciples themselves struggled with the mystery, that whilst Peter was amazed, disbelief and confusion were also rife.  Yet, what God had done was already taking effect. 

As the news of the mystery was being shared Jesus presence in the world and the empty tomb signified that God’s love had triumphed – that God’s will for the whole creation was not destruction but recreation.

God is faithful to the promise made to Noah never to destroy the creation again and whilst changes are still to come the creation goes on and death does not prevail, but life.

For the Celts, for the Kushana, for the Jagera and for the Mayan’s, as well as the myriad of other cultures that have ever lived, the ignorance they have of the events of Easter does not, cannot, preclude them from being recipients of grace.  At a very basic level the fact that the creation goes on is a sign of God’s love for them.  Beyond this it is not our place to suggest that anyone else is left out of God’s grace but to continuously remember the promise of the book of Revelations that in Christ God was making all things new and of Paul that there will come a day when every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God.

The great Russian scholar Alexander Khomikoff, over 150 years ago, said this: “The rest of (hu)mankind, whether alien from the Church, or united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she leaves to the judgment of the great day.  The Church on earth judges herself only, according to the grace of the Holy Spirit.” (Khomiakoff in Birkbeck 1895: 194)

The ripples of the resurrection go out.  Like the ripples across the water in a pond they continue outward to very edges of the creation, the ripples of the resurrection transcend time and they transcend cultures.

As people who have experienced the good news of Jesus in our lives our place is not to judge but to be what Christ calls us to be ‘a priesthood of all believers’.  The role of priests is to come before God on behalf of others and to come before others on behalf of God.  We come on behalf of others who do not know or understand the good news yet in the hope that the ripples of resurrection will be felt in their lives.  And we go out into the world in the hope that as we share the good news of our personal encounter with the crucified and risen one, Jesus, they too might be transformed by the story of God’s love.

It is difficult for us to imagine what the women and disciples understood and felt on that day so long ago but whatever it was God’s faithfulness to the creation was being played out in Jesus.  Eventually, it is the stories of this imperfect people that have passed on through the centuries so that we too might ponder the resurrection of Jesus and consider how the ripples of the event have flowed down to us through time and beyond the boundaries we create.

There is no doubt in my mind that today should be an intensely personal thing; that each one of us should feel and know and celebrate the mystery of the resurrection of Jesus. This is a gift of encountering the resurrection of Jesus life now, of entering into the eternal divine life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

At the same time as that as we encounter the mystery of the empty tomb we should also find hope in the idea that what God was doing in Christ was an entirely and powerfully cosmic event.  An event that can lift our hearts and heads in hope above the suffering and death and exclusion we see in this world.  An event that speaks of God’s faithfulness to all that God has made as see the ripples of the resurrection and hear the deep echo of hope for peoples, in all times and in all places: “Behold I make all things new!”

Photo: Creative commons by Kevin Gessner Flickr