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I have no idea what Easter Bunnies are all about.
Imagine a situation where on the 11th of the 11th - Remembrance Day - shops started selling chocolate grasshoppers.
“Why are you selling chocolate grasshoppers?” “well grasshoppers sort of go with poppies don’t they - and as we look at the cute little grasshoppers we can think of the beautiful red poppies”
“Yes , but what has that got to do with Remembrance Day”
“Does it matter? The children like eating them…”
And people would start telling little stories about “Once upon a time there was a Remembrance Grass Hopper….”
Well at worst - a lot of people would be highly offended. After the sacrifice of so many soldiers in the first and second world wars, isn’t it trivialising and offensive to be telling stories about chocolate grasshoppers?
Some of us would be not so much offended as anxious. There’s an important message about armistice day coming out of the horrific historical events of the twentieth century. If the history got lost behind fairy tales and commercialism then that message could get lost.
So it is with bunnies.
According to yesterday’s Times, Easter is apparently the second biggest retail event of the year after Christmas. But amidst the chocolate, fairy tales and commercialism, you can forget the history. Easter is first and foremost an event in which God breaks into history.
The narrative is just full of things which just wouldn’t be there if they weren’t true. They are too embarrassing to be made up. Or too odd.
Why for example the mass? We read throughout the Gospels of Jesus predicting that he would die on a cross and three days later he would rise again. “Oh, people just wrote that back after the event” say the sceptics. But then why does Jesus take a Passover meal and say over the Matzoh “this is my body given for you” and over the cup of blessing “This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins”. It’s too odd a thing to do, and too integral to the practise of the early Christians to have been written back after the event.
Or Why Judas? Who would want to make up a story about one of Jesus’s closest friends betraying him if it never happened?
Or why - in today’s Gospel reading - was it Mary Magdalene and other women who were the first witnesses of the resurrection. The first century world was sexist. Women were not considered as reliable witnesses. So if you are going to make it up, surely you have Peter and John as the first witnesses of the resurrection, not Mary Magdalene.
Time and again the story is full of things that nobody would have made up, because actually it happened.
A unique event that has never happened at any other point in history happened. God raised Jesus from the dead.
God isn’t a God who hides himself up there (point to ceiling) so you no more know whether he is real than you do the Easter bunny. God is a God who is actively involved in our world.
Last Sunday I shared with you the story of {name removed} . This young mum in her 30s has had a hard life. Her other died when her kids were tiny. Her youngest never even knew him. Then a few months ago she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The doctors were going to operate. They told her to prepare for the worst because they didn’t have the technology to remove fully the two tumours. But Christians were praying. And she woke up from the operation to find the surgeons astounded. Somehow, they don’t know how, they had managed to totally remove both tumours and she was in the clear. That is a God who is actively involved in our world.
I could tell the story of Rita, an old lady we prayed for. Rita was foolish. She was knew something was wrong, but she kept on putting off going to the doctors. By the time she got there the cancer was too advanced. She was told she had a few months to live. But Christians were praying. There was no lightening bolt healing. But three months later she wasn’t dead. In fact three years later she wasn’t dead. The cancer was in remission and though she was frailer than before, the last time I heard she was doing well. This is a God who is actively involved in our world.
This is a God who rolls back the stone and raises Jesus from the dead. Something happened in history that has changed history for ever since.
Of course you have to keep your eyes open. To someone who didn’t know that my friends {name removed} and Rita had been prayed for, it might seem pure coincidence that they had recovered. A strange unexplained thing from which no lessons could be learnt.
Peter and John rush to the tomb. They see the empty the rolled stone and the empty grave clothes, but they leave too quickly before they have time to find out what is going on. Mary Magdalene hangs around. “Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb”. And because she hangs around, she gets to see Jesus.
We need to make space for God to see God doing amazing things. Many people in this country never come to church, so if you come once a month that’s great. God can do amazing things in your life just like he did in Peter and John’s lives. Yet if you come only once a month you’ll only get a Peter and John blessing, you won’t get the full works Mary Magdalene blessing. Because if you are not there when God does something amazing, you’ll miss it. You are infinitely more likely to experience God speaking and acting than if you never come to church at all. But why settle for a hundred grand when you could be a millionaire? Why settle for a quarter of a blessing when you could get the whole thing? Why miss out on three Sundays of the month when God could be speaking powerfully to you or doing something amazing in your life just because on the fourth Sunday of the month you get the blessing?
Or what about coffee? Mary Magdalene hung around….. God may well speak to you during the act of worship. He may well also speak to you powerfully through the words of one of your brother or sister Christians over coffee. And if you don’t stay for coffee you’ll miss that message. Don’t worry - if you have already planned to leave quickly this morning it’s probably too late to change it - even for the Simnel cake that is being served. But change it for next week - and see what blessings God brings.
“Go to my brothers and say to them: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”.
In the Old Testament, kings talked about God as their father, and the nation of Israel as a whole is referred to as God’s son. But not you or I.
Then the Son of God comes, and through his death and resurrection, something changes. We are adopted as God’s children. We get to call God our Father. The God who is actively involved in the world gets actively involved in our lives.
And we are to speak of this to others
““Go to my brothers”...and Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples “I have seen the Lord””
Last night at our Easter Vigil service, after the new fire had been lit symbolising Jesus’s resurrection, the light was passed from candle to candle, person to person - the news of Jesus’s resurrection spreading. My houseguest Emelia lives in Cyprus and she was telling me that there on the Greek Orthodox Easter the churches are so full that not everyone can fit inside and people are crowded out onto the streets. So when the light passses from candle to candle it doesn’t stop in the church but flows out onto the streets - the good news of the resurrection spreading out into the town.
We may not be able to do it with candles but we can do it with our mouths. We can tell people that this ain't no myth but that God is active in the world, that God is active in our lives and that Alleluia, Christ is risen
He is risen indeed Alleluia
