Sermon: "Easter Sunday"

She's been found guilty then. Tracy Barlow has gone down to a life sentence for murder. Just in case anyone has not been following Coronation Street lately, Tracy killed her boyfriend Charlie Stubbs, and she claimed in court that she was acting in self defence because he was violent to her and threatened her life. The jury did not accept this, and convicted her. 

But the producer also filmed an alternative ending. In this, the jury accepted Tracy's defence and acquitted her. To prevent the outcome being leaked in the press beforehand, the decision as to which ending was to be broadcast was only made seconds before the episode was shown..... 

On Good Friday Jesus died on the Cross. His body was taken down and laid in a tomb. On the first Easter Day the stone was rolled aside and the grave clothes left empty. Jesus had risen from the dead. But there was an alternative ending. In this, Good Friday was the end. The body of Jesus remained, either in the tomb or somewhere else nearby. At first this alternative ending was the preferred ending. The Easter story is a demonstration of how different people in different places gave up the alternative ending and with great joy accepted the real one. 

Thomas was so attached to the alternative ending that he needed to be shown the marks of the nails in the hands of the risen Jesus before he recognized the real one with the words, "My Lord and my God !". Two disciples walking to Emmaus rehearsed the alternative ending at length until the real one was made known to them in the breaking of the bread, and their hearts burned within them as they came to discover it. The disciples were so committed to the alternative ending that, in the words of today's Gospel (Luke 24.11) the real one "seemed to them an idle tale" until Jesus appeared among them and proved it to them. Mary Magdalene accepted an alternative ending which had the gardener stealing away the body of Jesus, until she saw the real ending - that the gardener was actually her Lord, risen from the dead. Peter expresses his new understanding in a speech recorded in Acts 10.39-40. "They put him to death by hanging him on a tree". That was the alternative ending. "But God raised him on the third day". This is the real ending, and Peter and the other apostles spent the rest of their lives witnessing to it. 

The title of this year's united Lenten Course, EASTER PEOPLE IN A GOOD FRIDAY WORLD, recognizes that the alternative ending is still around and is widely believed. Many people are still living in Good Friday, as if Christ was not raised, the world was doomed, and there was no ultimate meaning to our lives. 

But we are the Easter people in that Good Friday world. Our presence here this morning shows that. We know the real ending and we rejoice in it. Christ is risen. And in him, we are risen. Eternal life begins today for each and every one of us. In him also, the world is risen. However threatening the international situation, however degenerated our nation and communities may be, there is a new hope. We can live out the story of resurrection in our lives, the lives of our communities, and the ongoing life of the world. This is the real ending, and in this ending there is a new beginning for the whole of God's creation. 

Preached by: Reverend Canon Dr. Raymond Bayley at St Peter's Collegiate Church, Ruthin on Easter Sunday, 8th April 2007