Easter Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons

Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb by Fra Angelico

The Resurrection of the Lord
April 20th 2025

Readings from the Mass of Easter Day

Lectionary: 42

Reading through the first reading of today's Mass of Easter day, these words of Peter's testament written for us in the Book of The Acts of the Apostles, struck me with a force that I need, he said: "We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and (in) Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised (on) the third day and granted that he is visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead." (Acts 10:39-41) The point that was driven home is the fact that I like so many cannot claim to have seen the `Risen Lord, we are the witnesses of the unseen Christ.

I find a visceral strength in the clumsiness of these accounts of the appearance of the risen Lord, people haven't changed, they struggle to comprehend and understand, and yes, get the risen Lord wrong, but it's the sheer ordinariness of Christ's appearances that seems to me to be the key, he eats and drinks, he calls and names people, he walks with them, his glory is not seen as that great pre-figuring on the Mountain at the Transfiguration, but in the glory of the ordinary, a seashore breakfast, an upper room full of frightened people, on a disconsolate walk with depressed disciples, for this is 'our' Risen Lord who comes to us through our experiences. Firstly through the negative, but this is not a depressing darkness, nor a great hollow emptiness, it is a rich encounter with the Christ who is at the heart of darkness, deep in the grave, in the midst of sin from where he returns to forgive and love. Secondly, this is the reality of the resurrection for us now. In Christ's resurrection we are forgiven, absolved even from the power of death itself, this must be our first act of witness. And so as a prompt may I share the first of three prayers for us on the great feast of Pascha.

Prayer 1. "Forgive me Lord, for my half-heartedness in proclaiming your resurrection! Given personal events, a world in which great powers place money and power before the individual, in which greed and exploitation are seen even on this Island in which I live. Help me to see a way through the darkness of destruction to habitat and community, to forgive us all for our common failure to work for a good future for the life in this world, and to be a steady gentle light guiding us onwards, when I and so many of us feel adrift, in a boat struggling to stay afloat, be our true Morning Star our good lord Jesus Christ. Amen"

The Risen Christ takes time to know, the resurrection takes our lifetime to understand and even that only partly, and that is why the Church helps us, as it does in times of grieving, by giving us a period, a space to adjust. For us in Pascha, it is a festal time, which allows us to enter in to the many encounters we will have with our good and gentle Lord. There is the Great Week itself, the Octave where each day is an Easter Day, and then those 40 days to the Ascension and 50 days to Pentecost, a time to renew and refresh us in the faith. There have been many baptised and Confirmed this Holy Pascha, we welcome them with immense joy, but recognise that now we are their witnesses in helping them discover the vastness and richness of this Community of the Risen Lord, for faith is a lifetimes journey and all of us have need of those who can accompany and guide us, as others will need our help also.

The choice of two second readings is useful for our ponderings, but my first thought in this section homes in on I Corinthians 5, where Paul tell us:" Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."(I Cur 5: 7,8) This is an image from the Jewish feast of Passover which h we adopted for the new Passover of the Lord, in this case the old yeast that must be searched for and removed is our tendency to mendacity and deceit, to meet the Risen Christ requires of us those our contrition that we may take on the virtues of sincerity and truth. So then, Holy Pascha, or Easter as we name it in English, is a period where we encounter the Risen One through our good actions, ready as He was, to stand up for what is right.

Here again this season is a reminder that right actions go with good faith, we have to work at being good, the resurrection of Christ envelopes us even now, and the ramifications of this cosmic act belong with us each and every day. The alternative second reading from Colossians 3 points this out in clear terms:" For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory". (Col 3: 3,4) In baptism we die to sin and rise with the Lord, and now despite ourselves, our faith life must be a hidden on, a leaven of truth in the bread of life.

Prayer 2. Lord, your mercy is boundless, your patience with us limitless. Through baptism we have died to sin and risen with you to inherit the promise of eternal life. As we rejoice in this feast of feasts, blow Your Holy Spirit in to our unsteadiness, that enveloped by the wind and fire of love, may we walk with faces shining in the reflected glory of this Paschal Light and our hearts filled with unbounded joy. Amen

When I was younger I found John's gospel of the empty tomb, not so much as perplexing, but annoying in its emptiness. There is no immediate encounter with the presence of Christ here, only a dark early morn and Mary of Magdala who tells Peter: "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him."(Jn 20:2) That should be the end of a story, or at least a pointer to its conclusion, only it is not. For in this gospel the raw encounter with the Holy takes us to those liminal moments in life, where the veil between this world and the Kingdom is lifted. Mary's proclamation, the Word of Life speaking through her apostolic witness as the Apostle to the Apostles, breaks open the hearts of those wretched disciples, afraid and disconsolate. They are seen through the persons of the Apostles John and Peter, who running to the tomb find only its emptiness, and the strange phenomenon of the burial clothes. To cut a long story and exegesis short, these details are highly significant. They tell us that there was no robbery involved, the position and tidy state of the cloths tell us that no physical removal of Jesus had happened but imply something has taken place, the contrast with Lazarus and his untidy grave cloths strengthens the point. They were lying where the body had been, like the cocoon of a caterpillar, only the cocoon of the graves clothes and the tomb was empty but undisturbed. It is this that burns an imprint in the hearts of `Peter and John, even though they do not yet have final proof, they recognise something beyond human activity has happened. And so for me the empty tomb is that stage of trust in the resurrection: 'He is not here, yet… He is risen!'

Prayer 3. Christ risen from the dead, trampling down death by Your death, to all of us who live and yet will die, the empty tomb and the grave clothes promise a new reality; that in Your resurrection all who lie in the tomb, or who are scattered stardust will live, and like You will be raised with our glorious bodies shining in perpetual light. Grant to us, and all who celebrate this great feast, that peace and joy that will never end. Amen

Christ is risen, He is truly risen!