Reading: John
20:1-18
We pray: Holy God, risen Christ, may we know you in
your word, may we explore your way for us and may we be blessed in our service
to those whom you love, to all people.
Amen.
I begin with a
poem – written last year by Abby – she called it ‘Women’s Work’ – it goes like
this:
We came there to
do the work;
Nobody wanted to
do it, so we went--
It was for him.
Everything was all
wrong,
The stone moved,
the door open.
We couldn’t find him.
Where have they
taken him?
We asked the
gardener,
But it was him.
Suddenly all those
times he spoke to us
Came to life,
And it was him.
When he said he
would rise,
This is what he
meant.
It was him – him!
We ran back so fast
it was like flying.
Nobody understood
us we talked so fast, but we knew
It was really him.
We had been hoping
for a saviour, a messiah,
Looking for a way
to reach God,
And it was him
It was always him.
It was him, it was
always him!
How many times, I
wonder, have we cast our eyes out to the horizon, to the far distant hills or
the unseeable future looking for our messiah, only to find that someone has
been tugging on our hand, saying ‘I am here, I am here.’
Abby’s poem really
touched a chord for me – a new path, you might say, into the story of Jesus
risen and in our midst.
It may not be the
path she envisaged but it was the one I found.
I have to say we
are truly blessed here with our creative writers –of psalms, poems, prayers,
hymns – and I love the way each of them invites us to consider things
anew. Something that may have become a
bit old hat suddenly takes on a new life because someone has been brave enough,
enthused enough to share their innermost thoughts with this community – and further
afield.
And with this
poem, I am encouraged to think about the times I have been looking in the wrong
place for the presence of God – the respectable, the safe, the predictable
places where I invite God to come to me.
And instead maybe we, like the women at work, need to come to that
understanding that Jesus is to be found in the person of the gardener, the
friend you walk the dusty roads with, the one you sit down to a meal with, the
one you explore the living of life with.
The Jesus of
Easter Sunday and the days to follow can be a conundrum for us – we might
choose to stand for a while in the impossibility of this thing that has
happened, this man come among us again.
And so we look for him in the miraculous, the far distant untouchable
mystery, the ascended Christ shining with glory to whom we can only look with
eyes averted lest we be blinded. And
yet Jesus takes pains to assure the disciples of his familiarity to them; to
walk with his people, talk with them, eat with them, discuss scripture with
them, to be beside them in their daily living.
He is trying to tell them that it really is him and he really is with us
again.
There is a sense
that nothing has changed and yet everything has changed
The Jesus of
Easter Sunday can also be the cause of much perplexity – has his body been
stolen, did this really happen, it’s impossible, that can’t be him – that’s the
gardener, surely……
Just like the
women – time spent looking down trails that detour us, trails that we imagine
because the reality seems too fantastic.
So much time spent on trying to find an acceptable explanation, a robust
thesis of resurrection that will get pass marks. So much time spent determining his status
when in fact all we need to know is that it was him, is him – and he is here
with us, now.
The Jesus of
Easter Sunday is, too, the focus of much excitement – imagine the
transformation of hope when the news spreads around, when even the doubters are
convinced that this ‘thing’ has happened.
Imagine the hand reaching out saying ‘It is I!’ when you expected to
return to a life without him. Those
lines: ‘We ran back so fast it was like flying. Nobody understood us we talked
so fast….’
When was the last
time we were that excited about discovering again the risen Jesus with us, of
realising that despite every nail of fear and hatred that put him on that
cross, he triumphed over death to come among us again; when was the last time
we danced with excitement – now that can be metaphorical rather than physical –
as we recognised the risen Christ, come among us still.
Can I invite you
in the time of reflection to ponder the Jesus of Easter Sunday for you, can we
find anew that excitement and conviction that despite all our looking in the
wrong places, it was always and will always be the risen Christ who moves among
us in the most unlikely and commonplace people and places, bringing love and
hope to us all. Can we too, when we do
stand to sing ‘Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia’, do so with delight and
excitement for we have suddenly realised ‘ It is him, I have seen the Lord and
he is with us, not stolen, not dead, not distant but alive and with us as we
continue to work out God’s purpose here in this place.’
Margaret Garland
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