2025 04 20 RESURRECTION SUNDAY
It was ladies who saw the
Angel, received a message, and delivered that message to the disciples, but the
disciples didn’t believe them. And that,
my friend, is the joy of being female!
Seriously, I’m not someone
who is going to shout women’s liberation at you, because I know God made us
different and complimentary. And I know
full well from what we do on the streets with Street Chaplaincy, that we ALL are
needed, though we bring different strengths to the table. Also, it isn’t just females that experience
disbelief when there is something a little fantastical to tell, (like the size
of that fish that they caught), but I can’t tell you how many times in the
past, I have tried to tell someone something about how to solve problems with
sound systems and they completely ignore me because, at the time, I was just a
young girl. And this is not just
something that comes from males either.
Telling tales here, but when I first got the keys to a certain Mitsubishi,
it was said to me, “Maybe you can get Rex to program your phone in.” And that was hilarious, because I’m way more
tech savvy than he is. Also, I recall a recent trivia game where a
young female who had previously worked in a vet tried to tell us all that
Koalas CAN have twins, but no one believed her – until the answer was given and
she was proved correct. How often might
we have we missed the truth because we didn’t expect the message to be valid
from the person delivering that message?
Is it a sense of pride, or a sense of our superiority that prevents
us? Our ego? Or our unwillingness to let go of our own opinion? Not to mention that dear stumbling block of
tradition – and we all have traditions we hold dear – I personally love the
Easter fire – this liturgy…. But what
about that one, based on a single scripture (a text taken out of context) that
only men can preach… ?
God is so good and gracious
to choose these women as the ones to first tell the Gospel. As a female who has felt called into a
speaking ministry since I was 18, I am SO grateful. These women diligently did as the Angels told
them, and the men thought that their words were idle tales. But this morning is not about shouting the virtue
of having woman in ministry – we DO need both! Today is about examining why those disciples
didn’t receive the message and learning from them. Was it their pride, and ego that prevented
them from receiving the Gospel? Gospel simply
means Good News, and those good apostles were slow to receive it. However, the bad apostle… that one who had
denied Jesus, with no self-pride or ego intact, to his credit, ran to the tomb.
Peter had learned so much in
his time with Jesus. He especially
learned to expect the unexpected and he learned that God does things
differently to what we might expect.
This would prove to be a vital quality in Peter being chosen as a
leader. Peter would be the one who would
first go to the Gentiles… something incredibly out of the box for a Jew, as
Jews generally looked down at Gentiles and believed them to be unclean.
This Good News, which is our
Gospel, truly is something out of the box.
Jesus Christ who was so very disfigured by the whipping and the
crucifixion, and completely and utterly dead… so much so that his side was
pierced rather than the traditional breaking of his legs, was now alive. This is crazy, and humanly impossible and so
very unbelievable – but it is true. We
know that eventually Jesus would appear to over 500 witnesses, proving that he did,
in fact, rise from the dead, and this is vital for our faith.
Jesus is called the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world.
There is a story about Jesus healing a lame man by saying, “your sins
are forgiven”. The Pharisees were upset
by this because only God can forgive sin.
Jesus IS God, and he proved it in the next part of the story. Which do you think is easier, to say, “your
sins are forgiven”, or to make a lame man able to walk? Of course, saying that your sins are forgiven
is easy – anyone can say it. However, it
doesn’t mean that those sins are forgiven. Jesus proved that he could forgive sin by the
action of also healing the man. The man
was healed spiritually and physically, took up his mat and walked. More often than not, those who experienced
healing were people without “ego”. They
were those, who were in touch with their humanity and fallibility. (And we can note that it was their ego that stopped
many miracles in his home town, as they looked down at Jesus as the carpenter’s
son – how can he do miracles?)
Jesus is the Lamb of God who
died to take away the sin of the world.
Once again, this is easy to say, but where is the proof that this is a
fact? But if Jesus who said that he said
that he died for the sin of the world, is risen from the dead, then we can bank
on that fact that our sins are really and truly atoned.
When I talk to non-believers
about Jesus, I get a little frustrated because there is a belief that
everything about Jesus is a matter of faith.
However, it is a Fact that Jesus was born, died and was crucified. It should be indisputable as the evidence is
enormous. However, I do generally concede
that the resurrection is a matter of faith, although there does exist plenty of
evidence for that also. I would go so
far as to say, the main thing that holds people back from faith in God, is not
that the resurrection is a fantastical story, but what holds us all back from
anything of faith, is the same thing as what we see in our Gospel reading, that
held back the apostles from believing the women. Ego… it really is a dirty word. The etymology of the word is “I” and it is
the opposite of all that God calls us to be.
We use it as an excuse for doubt, but often it is just that we want to
do, what we want to do and we put, “I” as of first priority instead of God.
There is a song that
captures this understanding, by Christian singer, Jeremy Camp, called NO
SURVIVORS. It’s pretty tough. Check out the lyrics:
I'm at war with my humanity
- Trying to reclaim my sanity
Nothing in my veins but vanity - It's the same old, same old
You told me it's Your
battle, God, so I need You to fight
'Cause if I'm gonna live then there's some things that need to die
My ego, my pride - My grip
on my life
Throw it all into the fire - And leave no survivors Survivors
Somebody give my past my
sympathies - Tell the old me I'm not
missing me
He can call, but I'm not listening (woo) - To the same old, same old
My ego, my pride - My grip
on my life
Throw it all into the fire - And leave no survivors Survivors
You're pushing back the dark
to get me closer to the light
Somebody tell my enemies there's nowhere left to hide
You told me it's Your battle, God, so I need You to fight
'Cause if I'm gonna live, then there's some things that need to die
My ego, my pride - My grip
on my life
Throw it all into the fire - And leave no survivors - -Survivors
It’s a pretty tough song,
but it actually fits perfectly with our letter to the Romans, which tells us, that
our old self was crucified with Jesus so that the body of sin might be
destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. We are to walk by faith as a new creation,
but even this is not in our power. As
the song tells us, the battle is God’s. God
has won this fight for us. All we need
to do, is to surrender and submit our lives to him. Raise the white flag to God and accept the life
of Christ in place of our own. Our life
is mortal and finite. His is
eternal.
We have lit our Easter fire,
signifying that we have passed over from darkness to light and from death to
life, and this is a reality through our union with Christ which we declare in
our baptism and our creed. We now live
in the joy that we are a new creation… the old is gone- as the song says, “Through
it all into the fire”. There
is to be no ego or “I” but only Christ who lives in and through us. He calls us to a new life. He calls us to be resurrected with him.
Now is the time for letting
go of all that is in our past. The times
we failed, and even our expectations and disappointments. Today, we are called to reflect on the
elements of our “I”… those things that
we hold back from God…. God who loves us so completely, calls us submit them
all to his holy fire. God who loves us
so completely calls us to resurrection. We are resurrected with him. We are eternally the beloved children of God. And it isn’t a fantastical story, but it is
reality. Christ is risen. Alleluia.
– He is risen indeed – Alleluia.
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