Catch Me If You Can - The World Turned Upside Down

Quail’s eggs and an elderly St Peter. Where should I begin?

Things are upside down at the moment. You go into the supermarket and you can buy quails eggs - but you can’t buy hens eggs for love or money. On Tuesday I bought this ….. I had never even heard of …. before . A luxury pasta from the region of… Had you heard of it? In normal times it is the sort of thing I might experiment with once a year for a luxury dinner party. Now it is the only pasta on the shelf in Tescos. The world has been turned upside down. A few months ago supermarket workers were the lowest of the low - “we don’t want immigrants coming in to do unskilled work like that”. Now supermarket staff are key workers vital to the nation - while bankers sit at home furloughed. The world has been turned upside down.

Easter turns the world upside down. I don’t know about you, but in my experience dead people don’t normally walk out of the grave three days later! The message of Easter is one of celebration, hope and the world being turned upside down.

When I was 22 I was an intern at Christ Church Highbury. I was given a list of elderly members to visit. There was one lady who I had been visiting for a few months when she developed a brain tumour. Over the months as I visited her she went down and downhill. As the tumour swelled she lost movement in her body. She began to forget things. Eventually she slipped away. I was with her an hour or so before she died and back within a few hours of her having died. Her’s was the first funeral I ever took. A normal day in the life of a 22year old? Is that the sort of story you expect in an Easter sermon. Is that the sort of story you expect in an Easter day sermon? Hell, yeah!

In the year AD 44 James son of Zebedee was executed by King Herod Agrippa

In the year AD60 Andrew was crucified in the city of Patras in Greece

In the year AD 66, an elderly St Peter was one of a number of Christians executed on Nero. Witnesses tell us that he asked to be crucified upside down because he did not feel worthy to go the same way as his master.

In AD 72, Thomas was martyred in Chenai in India

In fact of the 11 Apostles, ten were executed for their faith

Is that the sort of story you expect in an Easter day sermon? Hell, yeah!

Four years ago I sat by my mum’s bedside on an upper floor UCLH hospital for her final hours. I held her hand, I prayed with her. I read to her. I read from that beautiful passage from the end of last battle

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

And with my brother and me beside her Mum slipped peacefully away.

Is that the sort of story you expect in an Easter day sermon? Hell, yeah!

Why do I keep telling you these stories about death in the middle of our Easter Joy. Well lets go back to one of the first accounts of the resurrection. Matthew 28:1-10

28 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead,* and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’ 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’