Like many people, I enjoy watching crime series, Line of Duty, Happy Valley, Vera, The Serpent to name but a few. As I watch each episode in turn, I try to work out who is guilty and how they’ll get their come-uppance. In most cases, despite my best endeavours, I fail dismally and often find the ending to be a disappointment.
Over the past week, Holy Week, we’ve been reliving another story, a story whose ending doesn’t disappoint; dwelling on each scene in turn and trying to make sense of it. We began last Sunday when we paraded outside, waving our palm crosses, and then singing ‘Hosannas’ back inside. Then came Maundy Thursday when we gathered to share bread together as we followed Jesus’ command to ‘do this in remembrance of me’. On Friday we followed the Way of the Cross and experienced something of Christ’s journey to Golgotha as the cries of the crowd turned from ‘Hosanna’ to ‘Crucify him!’ Later we sat at the foot of the cross for the Last Hour and Lee led us in meditations on the enormity of what Christ did for us.
We paused
Then yesterday we paused…Holy Saturday – the day when nothing happens, when life seems to return to normal. After the tragedy of Jesus’ passion and death, we return to our normal tasks just as the disciples returned to their fishing nets. We look at the cross, see the enormity of the love of Jesus but are left wondering why and if it’s all true.
Then Sunday dawns and we proclaim: ‘Alleluia, Christ is risen He is risen indeed. Alleluia’ for ‘early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark’ (John 20.1) Mary Magdalene had gone to the tomb and found it empty. Jesus had risen and, in doing so, has proved that he is who he said he was.
God’s ‘Amen’
The resurrection is good news; good news because it’s the proof that Jesus’ death was not another case of pointless suffering inflicted by people on a fellow human being; good news because it’s the proof that Jesus was not another deluded man with a messiah-complex; good news because it’s the proof that Jesus is indeed the Saviour of the World. The death of Jesus is a guarantee that he loves us. The resurrection of Jesus is a guarantee of his truth. As one preacher to the papal household puts it, the resurrection: ‘is the testimony of God about Jesus Christ…it’s God’s powerful ‘yes’, his ‘Amen’ to the life of his Son Jesus Christ.’
When we say ‘Amen’ at the end of a prayer, or in response to something someone has said, we’re saying it is so, or so be it. We’re saying that we agree that something is true and affirming, that we wish to see it come to pass. When God raises Jesus from the dead, God is saying Amen to what Jesus has said and done in his life and death; God is saying that Jesus is who he said he is; God is saying that his death conquers sin; God is saying that true peace is available to all who believe in him; God is saying that Jesus is indeed Lord of all.
St Paul wrote to the Corinthians that ‘if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.’ (1 Corinthians 15.14-19) The resurrection is the event that makes sense of Holy Week; the event which allows Jesus’ ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It is ‘the seal of Christ’s authentic divinity’.
Look at the evidence
So, how can we be confident that the resurrection did indeed happen? Like all good detectives, we need to look at the evidence and listen carefully to the witnesses. Like many others, I believe the evidence to be irrefutable and the witnesses reliable. First there’s the empty tomb with the grave clothes lying in place where Jesus lay. If someone had removed Jesus’ body, they would have taken it still wrapped in its linen strips. Removing them would have been unpleasant and time consuming. And burglars aren’t known for leaving a place neat and tidy. They certainly wouldn’t have rolled up the head cloth and placed it carefully apart, from the other linen wrappings.
An empty tomb was not in the interests of the Romans or Jewish authorities. The disciples were not trying to stage a resurrection as, although Peter and John believed that something miraculous had taken place, they did not, on that Easter morning, understand what it was or what it meant. We’re told that, as yet, they didn’t understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead’ (John 20.9) which is, in itself, a reassuring detail, as it means that they didn’t invent the empty tomb to fulfil Old Testament prophecies.
Witnesses
If you were making up a story, you wouldn’t have included this confusion, and you certainly wouldn’t have had women as the first witnesses to the resurrection. The witnesses are reliable because they’re consistent, because they tell the facts as they saw them, yet don’t succeed in understanding what they mean until they’ve spent time with the risen Lord Jesus and been empowered by the Holy Spirit. And there are lots of witnesses.
St Paul notes that over 500 people saw the risen Jesus. During the time they spent with him they touched him, they ate and drank with him, so they knew he was no ghost but their Lord and friend, resurrected from the dead. These were people who had known Jesus well and were known at the time; they were witnesses who people could question as to what they’d seen; these were people who were prepared to die for the truth of what they testified to, and many of them did.
Joy and confidence
Hence, as we gather to celebrate this Easter Sunday, we can do so with joy and with confidence. Jesus Christ is risen today, and that truth enables us to believe that Jesus truly is the Messiah; it tells us that his death on the cross was a victory and not a defeat, a beginning and not an end. That truth not only gives us cause for deep joy but also gives us hope. It’s because Jesus is risen that we can look forward to the resurrection of the dead. Jesus promised the repentant thief that he would be with him in paradise. It’s because Jesus is risen that we can be united with him for all eternity.
Thus, this Easter morning we proclaim with joyful hearts: Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.
‘God’s Amen’ was delivered by Sheila Beattie at St John with St Mark’s on Easter Sunday, 2024. It was based on Acts 10.34-43 and John 20.1-18.