Saturday 11 April 2020

Easter Day

If you get here before 11-00a.m. on Easter day, please join with us by saying the Lord’s prayer at 11-00a.m.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

It really wouldn’t seem like Easter morning without this hymn.
Song:
Christ the Lord is risen today
Reading: Psalm 139 1-12
Song:
On that first Easter
Reading:

Luke 24 The Message (MSG)

Looking for the Living One in a Cemetery

24 1-3 At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus.
4-8 They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” Then they remembered Jesus’ words.
9-11 They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up.
12 But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that’s all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head.
If you prefer your readings in other versions, many others are available at https://www.biblegateway.com/

Song:
Low in the grave he lay


Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery?
He is not here,
Think about a person who makes you feel uncomfortable. We all know someone who, when we are with them, our little world seems rather less comfortable,whose presence dents our complacency, whose attitude to life makes us question the foundations on which our lifestyle is built. The world needs people who will ask the question “Why? People who won’t accept the status quo.
Jesus was such a person. He went through his earthly life disrupting the complacency of others. He was regarded as a bad influence, a troublemaker, a bit of a rebel. He refused to do what people expected him to do. He refused to bow down to the orthodoxy of the day. He was not afraid of what people thought of him.
A preacher was asked for one sentence which summed up his ministry. His response was to describe Jesus as “The world’s worst funeral director, he disrupted every funeral he went to, including his own.”
Because the record we have of his life in the main shows him as a peaceable person , who did not advocate armed rebellion, we don’t see him as a rebel. And yet, much of the gospel record is pure dynamite. Much of what Jesus said and did would have been offensive to some, and seen as dangerous by others.
He was not the I.R.A., the E.T.A. or the al Qaeda of first century Palestine, but he was still a rebel. In ways similar to those of Gandhi, he advocated resistance to the occupying forces. What Gandhi would have called passive resistance..
Take for instance the injunction to walk the extra mile. The forces of the occupying power had the authority to make a citizen carry their pack for a distance of one mile. Jesus knew this. He would also have known that if the soldier made the person carry their pack for more than the prescribed mile, then he would be the one in trouble. If the person put the pack down after the mile, then all was well. If on the other hand, they refused to put it down, and carried on walking, the soldier would have to ask, then tell them to put it down, in order that he did not get into trouble. The balance of power has suddenly shifted.
Some of you may have read a book called SS GB by Len Deighton. It is a fictional account of life in Britain under a Nazi occupation. It is set in a world where the Nazis invaded Britain in 1940, and won. In one episode, the occupying forces have taken several truckloads of children hostage from a school. The soldiers are strutting around, being obnoxious. Suddenly a child starts to sing “If you’re happy and you know it, Clap your hands” One by one the children join in. The fear has gone, the soldiers start looking around for instructions, this is a new situation to them, one which their mission plan had not prepared them. They become the nervous ones. This is the sort of disruption which Jesus caused and advocated.
Jesus caused so much upset, so much aggravation, was such a disruptive influence, that he managed to unite two implacably opposed enemies; the Romans and the Jewish leaders. He was a threat to both of them. He questioned their authority and encouraged people to think for themselves. These two new-found allies decided that Jesus had to go. They decided that they had to bury this nuisance once and for all.
So they acted. They killed him and buried him. And there the matter ended, or so they thought
Of course it didn’t. As we now know, his death was not the end. The tomb could not keep him. The disruption continued.
But of course, it doesn’t stop people trying. People are always trying to bury Jesus. Where do we try to bury him? Which tombs do we try to put Jesus into when he gets in the way of our lives.?
The tomb of the past.
How often when challenged by Jesus do we try to bury him in the tomb of the past? Tradition is an important part of our lives and society. When we have to make decisions in complicated situations, we rely on precedent. When we describe a situation as “without precedent” we are saying that we have never done anything like that before. This has been a commonly used phrase in recent weeks. This is a common statement in many churches. Whatever is suggested, someone will say “We have never done anything like that before”. This is usually followed, either spoken or unspoken by “and we’re not going to.”
When the question is asked why has it never been done before, people will give all sorts of excuses, most of which make no sense. Most of these are based on a dislike of change, a hatred of anything new, a love of the past, harking back to a golden age. But we don’t live in the past. We live in the now.
I once heard the Communist Party of Great Britain as unique. Unique in that it was the only organism known to science which neither grows nor dies. For something to be alive, a number of requirements must be fulfilled; breathing, feeding, movement, growth, reproduction, sensitivity and elimination of waste. To be alive, something has to fulfil all these things. If we don’t grow, relate to our environment or reproduce, we cannot be considered alive. If we try to keep things as they were, we cannot be considered alive.
We cannot live in the past. We cannot bury Jesus in the past. If we try to, he will send us a messenger asking “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here,” If we proclaim that Jesus is alive, then he is alive now, not in the past.
The tomb of narrow theology.
How often do we try to bury Jesus in our own narrow view of him? There are those who follow Jesus as an example of a good life. They will obey his commandments to do good, to fight evil and oppression. They call themselves disciples or followers but will ignore the spiritual aspects of his teaching. Some even go as far as to deny the existence of God, or the divinity of Jesus.
There are those who are so concerned about their spirituality, and that of others that they will ignore material suffering. There are those who are so wrapped up in the spiritual life that they will sit back in the face of poverty and injustice and suggest that we pray for the victims, but that we need do nothing. There are even those who will adopt the Pharisaic view that those who are well off have been blessed by God,, with the implication that those who are less fortunate have not been blessed for some reason.
We cannot bury Jesus in our own limited view of him, just following the bits which are convenient. If we try to do this, his messengers will come and ask “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here,” If we proclaim Jesus is alive, he is wholly alive, all of him, not just the bits that we happen to like.
The tomb of the church.
There are people who try to bury Jesus in the church. They consider themselves Christians, never miss a service, always involved in the activities of the church. They are committed to the life of the church, and all that goes with it. But often, they do not want the Jesus whom they worship on a Sunday to make any unreasonable demands on them for the rest of the week. They want the illusion of respectability that church-going brings, without the disruption that following Jesus will bring to the rest of their lives. Paul likens the relationship between the church and Jesus as being like a marriage. Remember that it is not [possible to be married for only one day a week. Can you imagine introducing someone as “This is my Sunday wife/husband”. Such people are trying to bury Jesus in the church. They want salvation and eternal life, but they do not want the obligations that following Jesus brings. They may even want to try to control Jesus. To tell people that they are in charge of when others can meet Jesus.
From start to finish, the teaching of Jesus is that religion involves every day of our lives. We cannot restrict Jesus to one day per week, or even worse, one hour on that day. People who try to bury Jesus in the church will be visited by one of his messengers asking “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here,”
Jesus will not be buried. Wherever we try to bury him because he is inconvenient, we will fail, just as surely as the Romans and religious authorities failed. He will remind us that the living are to be found among the living,and that we should look for him among the people we meet everyday and in every place. That is where his disruptive influence on life will continue to be found, in the awkward questions we face, which we ask, and which we are asked.
He is not in the tomb of the past.
He not in the tomb of narrow theology.
He is not in the tomb of the church.

He is alive!. Do not look for him among the dead.

Song:
Jesus Christ is alive today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOqW2kgAgqs Instrumental with words to follow. I especially like the two flowers out of place in the front of the bed. This is very much how we Christians are supposed to be, light in the darkness.

Prayer:
Lord of all life and power, through the mighty resurrection of your Son you have overcome the old order of sin and death and made all things new in him: grant that we, being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ may reign with him in glory; to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be praise and honour, glory and might, now and in all eternity. Amen.
Methodist service book, 1974
Song:
I serve a risen saviour

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