Easter 2013





I want you to imagine that you have some really good news. You are itching to tell others about it: It maybe a birth of a new grand child or a new loves of your life it maybe just something that you just want to share with another person. And when you tell them they are not excited as you are and say something like “Oh that’s nice” Imagine how let down you are, how disappointed you will be the next time you want to share with them some good news. In fact you may not even bother.
Now imagine that you are one of the women who had gone to the tomb to see Jesus on that first Easter Sunday morning.  You are told “Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?” As you leave your head is filled with all the things that have happened over the last few days and its all clicked into place.  You go back to tell the others and they don’t believe you. It takes a little convincing but to stop you going on about it they go and see for themselves and when they go into the tomb they realise the truth that Jesus has truly risen from the dead. I suspect a little part of me will want to say “I told you so”
We are given this same message today. We are like those women on that first Easter morning. We have news of great joy that Jesus has risen from the dead. We also have a society that finds this hard to believe that needs hard evidence of the resurrection and we do not have to look very far. We need to take that message of the angel to heart “Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?” We see it in that precious gift of life, in new people seeking to know the person of Jesus better, we see it in those Christian communities in the world that meet with threat of persecution for what they believe. We see Christ alive in our streets when we show kindness to another
And we see the Risen Christ in the sacraments of the Church and today in the Eucharist as a community as we gather around the altar of the Lord. For it is here that we receive the risen Christ he lives in us he makes us whole and complete in order to go out and show others about the person of Christ. We need it and he needs us. The person who will tell you that I am a Christian but I don’t go to Church is so far away from the truth for it is here in the worshiping community with all its faults and failings whether we like the priest or not, or the hymns or a person in the congregation we come to experience and receive the risen Christ.
In a few moments we renew our baptism vows that our parents made for us when we were first brought into the Church. Let us renew our faith and hope in the love of the Risen Christ has for us and commit our lives to him so that we be alive with the joy of the risen Christ in the world who so badly needs him. 

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