Acts 5: 27-32, John 20: 19-end

Alleluia Christ is risen he is risen indeed alleluia.

What tosh! What balderdash! What nonsense! Talk about being away with the fairies not to mention dragons, unicorns and all other fanciful things.  Jesus Christ is risen, no way! Simply delusional.  Such sentiments have been heard and volubly expressed ever since on that first Easter morning as light dawned the tomb in which the decidedly dead body of Jesus had been placed was found to be empty.  Dead men do not and never have risen from the dead and certainly not one who without a shadow of doubt had been certified truly dead any idea to the contrary has to be beyond belief.

The authorities of the time were having none of it putting around the story that the disciples themselves had somehow removed the body and then in a sort of mass hysteria testified to seeing Jesus. Seeing him quite simply appear in their midst in a locked room and later in other places or so they claimed What delusional rubbish! Those authorities possibly felt even more threatened by such a claim than they were when they sentenced Jesus to death. No way could this Galilean peasant be the longed-for Messiah; he simply did not and never had met their expectations of what such a Messiah should be like. No this was a ridiculous claim that had to be stamped out as soon as possible using as much force as was necessary to lay it once and for all to rest. Alleluia Christ is risen, he is risen indeed Alleluia. Oh no he hasn’t, or this is what those authorities wanted to be the truth, wanted people to believe. But despite the threats, the rounding up and even killing of those who would not, could not deny the reality of the empty tomb, the reality of the risen Christ in their midst; whatever their personal danger they would not and could not retract. They were one hundred per cent convinced without a shadow of doubt, without a hint of unspoken questions that Jesus who had died, had risen and was indeed the long promised Messiah, the Saviour, the Son of God himself. A conviction in part bolstered by the experience of Thomas who had quite understandably in my opinion expressed his own doubts in those first traumatic days following the discovery of that empty tomb with its folded grave clothes. Thomas whose doubts were completely erased by being told to touch those terrible so cruelly inflicted wounds in Jesus’ hands, feet and side. Thomas who now along with the other disciples would not, could not, deny the reality of the risen Christ.

But the more the disciples bore witness the more the authorities sought to put a stop to such nonsense and maintain the status quo which ensured their comfortable privileged position and their carefully constructed relationship to their Roman overlords which they had no wish at all to see disturbed in any way. They thought they had assured such a continuing relationship when they had so cleverly manoeuvred the crowds into calling for Jesus’s death and Pilate into agreeing to such a travesty of justice. But no! Now they had to combat this nonsense this outrageous claim that Jesus had risen from the dead and hence we learn in our Acts reading of the beginning of what was to prove a very long period of active persecution against these people who now called themselves Christians; a persecution which in fact has sadly lasted to this present day.  Peter and his fellow disciples had been arrested, and put in prison, from which they had miraculously escaped to continue as boldly as before to teach the people the gospel, the good news  and now they were brought before the council to be questioned about their seemingly preposterous claims of belief in a risen Christ and told once again not, under any circumstances  to continue teaching these claims to others.

But Peter was having none of it and his response is spoken with ringing conviction: ‘We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Saviour, so that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.’ 

Defiant words. Words which over two millennia later claim our attention. Words which have been repeated down those millennia by   those who are convinced that Christ is risen and that nothing not even death can now separate us from God’s love. Last Wednesday we celebrated St. George’s Day and while the very idea of his slaying a dragon can I think, we would all agree, be dismissed as a delightful fairy tale, or should that be dragon tale,  with no possible grounds for truth his witness to the risen Christ was all too real and when he refused to recant was martyred by orders of the Emperor Diocletian. Perhaps we can see in his act of courageous defiance as destroying the dragon of doubt and ourselves pray the words of his collect that the risen Lord gives us the same faith and power of love to bear witness to the risen Lord and come to share with George the fulness of the resurrection.’

C.S. Lewis the author of the wonderful Narnia books with their interwoven Christian theme and so much else was a staunch, unbending atheist until like Paul he was given a supernatural experience bizarrely not on the Damascus Road but on the way to the zoo and hence was able to declare that ’Faith isn’t contrary to reason but goes beyond reason to provide meaning.’ A miraculously acquired faith that led him to use as the beautiful  title of one of his books ‘Surprised by Joy.’

And so over and over again men and women down through the centuries have declared their faith in the reality of the risen Christ and the overcoming of death.  And here it is poignant to note that the two hundredth and sixty- sixth pope to sit in the Chair of St Peter Pope Francis gave only in February of this year as he neared his own death a profound reflection on death emphasizing that for those who recognize Christ as the Savior, death is not an end or a form of “annihilation.” Instead, it is “a kind of ‘sister’ that introduces the faithful departed to true life,”

For Peter and this first disciples who bore witness to the empty tomb and the risen Christ, for George, for Lewis, for Pope Francis their belief is no fairy tale, no nonsense, no balderdash but quite simply the Truth. The truth as expressed by St Augustine of Hippo: All shall be Amen and Alleluia. We shall trust and we shall see. We shall see and we shall know. We shall know and we shall love. We shall love and we shall praise. Behold our end which is no end.

As we today join with millions before us may we re-echo those words ‘Christ is risen’ and be ourselves surprised by joy knowing with certainty his presence with us this morning.