Tag: Christ is Risen

Easter Sunday: He is not always in the same place!

Acts 10:34-43
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18

Risen Lord, fill our hearts with Easter joy.
May the light of your new life shine forth from us,
So that we may fill the world
with good news of your resurrection .
Dying you destroyed our death,
Rising you restored our life.

Happy Easter! Christ in Risen!

There are no better stories than ones that start off badly and sadly and end gladly in glory. However, we must avoid the temptation to assume that the pain and terror, the confusion and sorrow of Good Friday is all washed away by Easter Sunday. This is not a story that can have a bow tied around to tidy up for another year. Nor is it one that we can discount like the chocolate eggs still in the grocery stores.

The Easter story is one that moves and transforms us. It should deepen our Christian lives and witness each time we hear it.

Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk and poet, who lived from 1915-1968, wrote a little book called ‘He is Risen’. It begins with:

‘He has risen, he is not here… he is going before you to Galilee. (Mark 16:6-7)

Christ is risen. Christ lives.
Christ is the Lord of the living and the dead.
He is the Lord of history.

Christ is the Lord of a history that moves.
He not only holds the beginning and the end in his hands,
But he is in history with us, walking ahead of us to where we are going.
He is not always in the same place.

Let this be a helpful guide to us this Easter Day. He walks ahead of us to where we are going. He is not always in the same place.

The resurrection of Jesus is a story of love and transformation. The Church is to be a place of love and transformation. The Church needs to apologise for when it fails to be loving; when it meets the stereotypes of being a place of judgment, unkindness, rigidity; when it would rather maintain rules than build relationships. We need to walk ahead; our leader certainly has.

The first Easter day began in darkness, Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb early. She was likely one of the last to leave on Friday; Mary knew the tomb had been sealed with a giant stone. Jesus was not in the place where Mary had left him.

So she ran to find Peter and John. Imagine that conversation, out of breath, trying to get the words out. Exhausted, confused – ‘they have taken the Lord out of the tomb!’ Mary was convincing enough for Peter and John to set out running. John gets there first; younger and faster but he is not able to bring himself to enter. Peter goes straight in. He finds the linen wrappings empty. Jesus was definitely not in the place where He was last seen.

Maybe some here this morning feel dislocated from the Church or faith. Maybe you have been looking for something and not found it. Looking to the world, to society is not providing the answers we need and lacks certainty and truth. Or maybe you have been looking within and found that your own resources are depleted. The Church can sometimes appear to be empty and lacking too.

Maybe God is not in the same place you thought He might be.

Maybe it is time to stand still. Mary got back to the tomb after Peter and John and stood weeping. She stopped for a while. Then probably got the second biggest shock of her life although her reaction seems subdued. Two angels sitting where Jesus had been. A brief conversation ensues and then Mary turns around.

At first she does not recognise Jesus. Mary Magdalene who had been an early follower of Jesus since her healing/exorcism of the seven demons, does not recognise Him. This is almost unbelievable that someone so close to Jesus cannot recognise Him – even after two days apart. Jesus was not in the same place and neither was Mary.

It is not until Jesus calls her by name and she gets the greatest shock of her life. Mary needed to be called back. Back to The One who had healed and redeemed, who loved her more than any other. Mary is called back to move forward. We too need to be called back to move forward. Jesus walks ahead of Mary and He walks ahead of us.

Peter had a similar experience of being called back to move ahead. Peter the fisherman turned zealous follower turned Good Friday denier turned Easter Sunday runner to being restored by Jesus on the shores of Lake Galilee is now preaching and teaching in Caesarea. Peter is preaching about belief in Jesus and the forgiveness of sins. Peter knows what he is saying is true because he witnessed it, he received it and committed himself to living it out until his own crucifixion. Peter has taken the commandments of Jesus to share the Good News seriously.

Paul, who wrote the letter to the Colossians, is telling us to seek Christ and to seek things that are above. Paul gets it too, although he never met Jesus while He was alive. Paul was on the opposing side, the enemy of Jesus and his followers. In a flash of light, Paul’s direction changed. Jesus was not going to leave Paul where He was. He did not leave Mary or Peter the same either.

On this Easter Sunday, my prayer is that we will watch for Jesus in new ways. Not in the traditions, assumptions or habits of the old but in the newness of the Easter season. If you cannot seem to find God in the same place, maybe it is time to scan the horizon and look again. He is walking ahead of us.

Thomas Merton again…

Christ is risen. Christ lives.
Christ is the Lord of the living and the dead.
He is the Lord of history.

Christ is the Lord of a history that moves.
He not only holds the beginning and the end in his hands,
But he is in history with us, walking ahead of us to where we are going.
He is not always in the same place.


Easter Sunday: Amazed!

Easter Sunday concept: Empty tomb stone with cross on meadow sunrise background

20/4/25
Easter Sunday

Acts 10: 34-43
Luke 24:1-12

Risen Christ,
for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred:
open the doors of our hearts,
that we may seek the good of others
and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace,
to the praise of God the Father. Amen.
Jesus is Risen. That is the message of today. I know that and you know that too. I kind of want to sit down now!

We gather together this morning, along with Christians around the world, to celebrate what has been done for us by Jesus on cross. We should contemplate what it meant then and what it continues to mean into our futures both in this life and in the life to come. My hope this morning is that as we hear again the familiar story of the empty tomb, we can put ourselves somewhere in the story of that first Easter Day.

Luke’s account has slightly different details than the other gospels. This does not mean it is better or more accurate; Luke’s perspective is simply different. Luke was not present at the first Easter (like John and Matthew), his information came from the eyewitnesses to the crucifixion and resurrection.

The Easter story started at early dawn, while it was still dark and the sun had barely started to rise. The women went to the tomb in bewilderment, in fear. Easter does not start with lilies and trumpets, it begins in darkness and doubt. The world we live in is full of darkness and doubt. Many people have no faith, they doubt there even is a God. Jesus is diminished to a historical figure at best and a swear word at worse. If God does exist then he is powerless, indifferent or too far removed from the human experience to be of any use. People stop bothering even trying to look for God, let alone the empty tomb.

Those earlier followers might have had similar thoughts. Jesus’ crucifixion dealt a serious blow to belief. He was not supposed to die like that. Many of the disciples scattered during the crucifixion as they could not watch Jesus hang there. People on the fringe of the group were the ones who removed Jesus’ body and sorted out the tomb. Pilate made sure the tomb was sealed. It is over.

But. On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.

Bless the women whose curiosity overcame their grief and despair. They left home in the dark and went back to the tomb. They were ready to finish the job of preparing the body with their spices and perfumes.

My younger sister, on hearing one of these accounts at Sunday School, asked our Mum if she would please put perfume and spices on my sister’s body when she died. This was quite profound for a five-year-old: when she died, not if she died.

These women, who had been at the cross, went to the tomb expecting to find Jesus’ body. They had seen it hanging on the cross so knew the condition it would have been in. They were prepared to do a very grim job out of love, out of belief in the message and teaching of Jesus.

But they did not find it. We can only imagine the shock and surprise these women faced. There was a body yesterday but not today! The empty tomb is central to the Christian faith, it needed to be empty for any of it to be true. Still the emptiness of it was unexpected that first day.

God did not leave the women alone with their confusion and perplexity as suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?

I think this is one of the greatest questions of all time. Why do you look for the living among the dead? It is so true in many situations. We try to go back and look for things that are no longer relevant or helpful.

Are we looking in the right place for answers and explanations? Do we still use these to explain away our current situations, behaviours, and understanding? No wonder we get stuck.

Do we do the same things time after time but expect different results? Do we treat people the same way, with the same expectations – but want a different response? Maybe it is time to look somewhere new.

This applies to God as well. The God that many people claim to not believe in has no bearing on the God the Father and Jesus the Son. He is not distant or mean or dismissive. Jesus is not simply a good human being who told some good stories.

He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words.

Sometimes we too need to remember what we know about the promises of God. He did not come to meet our expectations but to meet our needs. This is cold comfort sometimes. I think this is why many people struggle with God; he does not act or behave in a way that would make life more convenient or easier for us. For some people the evidence in the actions and convictions of Christians is enough to put them off God – especially those that show no evidence of love, forgiveness and grace.

Jesus rose again on the third day so that we could be with him forever, be forgiven and freed from our sins.

and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

I’m not sure about you but I struggle when I am not believed. If I am telling someone about an event or situation or telling a story, I expect that I will be believed.

We have some idea of what these women have been through – the disciples (the men) all left Jesus on the cross as they could not bear to watch. It was these women who were up early to get to the tomb to finish the preparations. The grief they must have been feeling. And now the hurt of not being believed.

Think of some recent encounters with people and think seriously about this. Am I treating the stories of others as an ‘idle tale’ or the real lived experience of another human.

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Luke has Peter going to the tomb by himself. Evidently Peter believed what the women had to say so he went too. Peter was probably the one disciple who had a wife, so he would have known better.

Something that Peter heard was enough to get him out of the house and on the road. Peter was the one who had denied Jesus three times as Jesus told him he would. We again can only imagine how Peter must have felt that next day – his grief, his shame could only have been overwhelming.

Maybe Peter saw this as a way to make things right, he was looking for redemption. He saw the linens clothes by themselves and went home amazed at what had happened.

This Easter, may the Christ who rose in the darkness lead us into new life, new light, and new hope, new amazement. May we be prepared to look into the empty tomb, into our empty knowledge. May our curiosity eclipse our old ideas and ways of being. May we dare to linger at the tomb until it makes sense. May we come to understand what this all means, who God is and what Jesus did and does for us. May our answers be honest and humble, earned and true.

Happy Easter. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.