It’s spring, whatever the weather might be doing. We have passed the equinox, the clocks have gone forward, and it’s spring. And with spring come daffodils, and birdsong, and butterflies. There’ve been a few about already, small tortoiseshells and peacocks mostly. These are butterflies that overwinter as adults, and sometimes we find them fluttering against our windows on warm days in winter. Now they’re seriously beginning to get out and about.
And soon we’ll begin to get some of the butterflies that overwinter as a pupa, and in a chrysalis. This is the stage between caterpillar and adult. Some of these butterflies aren’t as popular or welcome as small tortoiseshells and peacocks - one of them is the cabbage white. But it’s a small miracle when the dry, dead looking chrysalis splits open to allow a new and pristine butterfly to emerge and to fly. Not surprisingly, the imagery of chrysalis and butterfly is often used by preachers on Easter Day, and this address is no exception.
There’s clearly something chrysalis-like about the empty tomb attended by Mary Magdalene, and by Peter and John: when they get there they find just the shell remaining. The body that had been placed there has been triumphantly and wondrously released. And the fact that the graveclothes and the linen cloth left inside the tomb - here is a sign that something new is happening here. Jesus did not come back to life on Easter Day. That’s what Lazarus did when Jesus brought him out of the tomb. Do you remember, he was still wearing his grave clothes, brought back to earthly life, to die again some day. Easter is different from that and new: Jesus is alive in a new way, Jesus has moved forward into a new dimension of living.
The chrysalis from which a butterfly will emerge seems to be dead, but inside it contains life. That’s true also for the other great Easter symbol, the egg. But it’s not true of the tomb in that garden. On that first Good Friday evening and through the day that followed the tomb contained no life.
The body laid within it had been certified dead. Joseph of Arimathea, who provided the tomb, expected nothing to happen there; all he wanted was to do the right thing by this good man. Mary of Magdala and the other women with her, when they made their troubled way into the garden through the early morning mist, knew they would find only death in that place. But they needed to do what they could, so they came to anoint the body now that the Sabbath was over.
We shouldn’t be surprised to find there’s something mysterious and dream-like about the Easter stories we read in the four Gospels. Jesus shows himself to be the same man that died, that people had seen die, that people had laid in a tomb: the scars were there in his hands and feet, the gash where the spear had been thrust into his side. And yet he’s not the same; he appears in a room whose doors have been closed and locked, and people who’ve known him well don’t recognise him when they first see him. What has happened is unthinkable, impossible, and it will take time for his friends to get their heads round it all. But also, this is not resuscitation, this is not “a conjuring trick with bones”; this is something new, not a resumption but a beginning.
One Easter hymn speaks of ‘the Queen of Seasons, bright with the day of splendour’. Something new has begun, and nothing is the same as it was. A man known to have died has been raised, and his tomb is left empty, the graveclothes no longer needed. Without Easter what would be left of our Christian faith?
Let’s imagine no Easter Day, no risen Christ. imagine the disciples making their furtive way back to their fishing nets, picking up the threads of their old lives, as the challenging things said and done by this carpenter’s son from Nazareth fade in the memory and are cast aside. Think of the cross continuing to be nothing more than the mark of shame and disgrace. Think of death continuing to have the last word.
But that isn’t what happened. Jesus continues to live in people’s hearts because on that first Easter Day people knew he was alive. Death does not have the last word. Jesus was not raised as a one-off. He wasn’t raised because he’s so good and so different from us that the normal rules don’t apply to him. Jesus is raised from the dead as God’s declaration that life is for all to share, that every one of us is born to inherit life and not death. For though we are made of the dust of the earth, we are made in the image of the God whose love for us stands for ever; we have within us the seeds of eternity.
Five words to take to heart, then, on Easter day: ‘Make the most of life.’ You could interpret those words in a selfish way: please yourself, and don’t worry about the rest of the world, or even “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” But that would be like being the caterpillar that wants to just stay a caterpillar for ever. The message of Easter day is that there’s more than that for us. The empty tomb, the grave clothes set aside, speaks of the love stronger than death in which we are known and named. And that it’s worth using and sharing what we’re given - loving our neighbours as ourselves.
To see a butterfly newly emerged from its winter shell is a wonderful thing. The wings gradually open to the sun, the warmth gradually has its effect, and suddenly the insect is airborne, flying strongly, making the most of its new wings.
And we are offered the renewing and strengthening warmth of God’s love so we can make the most of the life that is his gift to us. God calls us to meet him not just on Easter day but every day, and promises that when we open our hearts to him we too can be transformed as his people. To be Easter people is about what we do with the whole of our lives, not just the Sunday bits of them. The world today desperately needs more Easter people within it: people who are living now the life that is eternal, people who are trusting now in the love that is stronger than death, people who are serving now our risen Friend and Brother by continuing his work of healing and renewing, befriending and blessing, bringing light into the world’s dark places. As we do this, so we shall be offering our own sacrifice of praise to the one for whom the cross became a throne and the grave became a garden - revealed in all its spring beauty when the stone was rolled away.
No comments:
Post a Comment