Easter 2024

It's Easter again. 

The annual cycle of the Christian calendar "forces" you to revisit the central events and truths of the faith at least once a year. The "run-up" to Easter, Lent, is 40 days plus 6 Sundays of Lent - plenty of time to reflect on the events of the first Easter. 

Looking back over the years, I have distinct memories of celebrating Easter on various occasions. 

One Easter I remember well is 1991. I was on holiday with my family on the island of Jersey in 1991. This was shortly after what  I consider the moment of my conversion in February 1991. The service I attended on that occasion included the rousing Easter hymn, "Thine be the glory." The two weeks or so at that time were a significant time of spiritual growth for me.  

I also keenly remember celebrating Easter in Novosibirsk, Russia in 1996. Russian Easter is on a different date and is a far bigger "deal" than Christmas. At the service in the Baptist church, again and again we repeated the exchange, "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" and sang the Easter chant, "Christ is risen from the dead. By death he has trampled down death. And to those in the graves he has granted life." Easter Sunday 1996 was the first time one of our close Christian friends, Larissa, attended a Baptist church service, and she has "stuck around" ever since.    

Ever since about 1998, I have preached almost every Easter Sunday. 

Each time, I have tried to come up with something fresh to focus on. In 2004, it was evidence for the resurrection. Another year it was the stone rolled away from the opening to Christ's grave. More than once, I have preached on the contrast between the sombre mood of Good Friday evening and the jubilation of Easter Sunday morning. Interestingly, the backdrop to both events is the same - Nicodemus' garden tomb where Christ was laid, and where he rose from the dead. Easter is associated with dawn and sunrise. I think one time I made the point that, when Christ rose from the dead, reversing the power of death, the power unleashed within that tomb eclipses the enormous energy generated within the sun itself as it rose in the morning sky over Jerusalem. 

This year, at Radcliffe Road church, we have been reading through the gospel of John. In John's gospel the image is of the decisive "hour" approaching. 

Throughout the earlier chapters of the gospel, the hour has *not* yet come, and so, Christ, the Son of Man, performs powerful signs and teaches, yet his identity is somewhat hidden. On occasions, he withdraws from sight to avoid too much attention and publicity. Christ's most powerful miracle was the raising of Lazarus from the dead - a miraculous sign which makes him hugely popular and sought after. 

As a result, Jesus is welcomed into the city of Jerusalem by adoring crowds acclaiming, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord - the King of Israel." That is the turning point. Now that Christ's identity is public knowledge, the end is now imminent. "The hour has come." (John 19:14)

In John's gospel, the "hour" is when Jesus was "glorified". The "hour" is not a tragic end to an otherwise remarkable life, but the Son, having now become man, going back to his Father, Christ being "lifted up", being glorified, now as a human being, as one of us, with the glory he had with the Father before the world began. "And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." (John 17:5)    

That "hour" of glorification involved anguish, treachery, false accusations, miscarriage of justice, and the full unrelenting force of the Roman Empire as it carries out the sentence of death. Throughout the whole ordeal, Christ maintains his dignity. He bears up. But at the end of it all he is dead. His secret disciple Nicodemus is able to obtain the body - usually crucifixion victims' bodies ended up in mass graves or worse. And Nicodemus affords his master preparation for burial, and then has the body placed in a new tomb - one he had originally purchased for himself. 

But the events of Good Friday are not the end of the story. When, at first light on the first day of the week, the women go to the tomb, the stone has been rolled away. Christ's body is no longer in the tomb. The burial clothes have been left folded. The disciples are told that he has risen, as he promised. And then Christ himself appears, first to Mary Magdalene and then to other disciples. The risen Christ says to Mary Magdalene, "Do not hold onto me.... I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God". 

The message of Easter is that Jesus is glorified. And as he was lifted up on the Cross, and then rose from the dead, and then ascended to the Father, he takes us with him. 

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!