Awake from your sleep and rise from the dead
Easter Sunday
There was no witness to the Resurrection, but there were many witnesses to the Risen Christ.
However, there was a moment when the body lying in the tomb was touched by the divine presence and burst forth in resurrected glory. This was not the resuscitation of a corpse as in the case of Lazarus, it was the human body of Christ transfigured into new and glorious life.
There was a moment of resurrection and the tomb was left empty, only the burial cloths remained.
The redemptive work of Christ was accomplished. But there was still a work to do.
The Risen Lord manifested himself to those closest to him. It was Mary Madelaine, weeping by the tomb, who was the first to see him in his risen state. Not able to imagine the impossible, she did not at first recognise him. But the simple saying of her name revealed that it was the Lord. She embraced him, overwhelmed with joy.
The risen Lord told her to tell his disciples that he is risen. She was the proto-evangelist of the resurrection. Mary Madeleine initiated the proclamation which is the great declaration of the Church: Christ is risen, He is truly risen. This message remains the single most important announcement of the Christian church to the world: in Christ’s resurrection death has been vanquished.
St Paul boldly wrote: “Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?” (I Cor 15:55).
The clear focus of the Lord after his resurrection was to reveal Himself in His risen life to those closest to him. He had died for them, and also He had risen for them. They needed to move from confusion and despair to, not only being confirmed in faith, but to becoming evangelists, announcers of the resurrection of Christ to the world. This was the greatest good news ever known. Because it was not just about what happened to Christ, it was also about what can happen to us. This single truth has changed everything about being human.
The resurrection was not only the vindication of the life and mission of Jesus, but it was also meant for us. We were not only redeemed, forgiven for our sin and waywardness, but we are given the promise of a new and extraordinary destiny: we, too, will rise from death, in our bodies, and have eternal life.
Again, the New Testament writings reveal the wonder of the good news. In the Letter to the Ephesians there is a text which is most probably a quote from an early Christian hymn: “Wake from your sleep, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph 5:14).
Thus, in appearing to His disciples, the Lord firstly wanted them to believe that He was truly risen. He was not a ghost. He was imagined as somehow a product of wishful thinking. He was alive. In showing them His wounds, He was revealing that the one who endured the crucifixion is the one standing before them. He asked them for something to eat to show that His humanity was not discarded. He was, in fact, the model of what would be offered to every believer. St Paul teaches that our bodies will be transfigured into copies of his glorious body (see Phil 3:21).
The clear intent of the Lord was to reveal not only that He was risen, but to declare that this risen life is what God offers to all who unite their lives with Christ. Again, quoting St Paul, “If in union with Christ we have imitated his death, we shall also imitate him in his resurrection”. The door to our participation in the resurrection is found in Christ.
This is the Christian revolution. Each person is to no longer live for themselves. They are to live for Christ, for He is the passage from death into life.
Our current culture is driven by an expressive individualism which defines the person as an atomised and solitary will. The cultural ethos says constantly that it is all about me and my intention to maximise my capacity to choose. We have become seduced by the idea that human happiness will be found in the pursuit of one’s innermost identity by choosing and configuring life in accord with a person’s own distinctive core intentions, feelings and preferences.
As well as losing a sense of our profound human interconnectedness grounded in our dependence on others, this radical pursuit of individualism denies our absolute dependence on God who has created and redeemed us.
Life must be fundamentally re-oriented. Human life cannot just be about us and our personal life project. We cannot limit the horizons of human existence just to this finite, imperfect world alone. We cannot determine our life driven by self-will and the pursuit of personal satisfaction.
A new word has come into fashion to describe the reality of death. We say someone has ‘passed’. Passed where? Passed into what?
Christianity declares that if we are united with Christ, then death is the gateway into being transfigured into glory.
Thus, there is one goal for every human life: We live for Christ.
Jesus declared to Martha, “I am the resurrection. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die”. (Jn 11:25)
Then He said to her – and he says to each one of us on the Easter day – “Do you believe this?”
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Saturday, 3 April 2021