Easter Sunday

 

This Easter Sunday at St Nicholas Church, we celebrated the resurrection with the ancient practice of baptising someone who has joined our church family since last Easter.

Whenever I speak at a baptism, I try to make a connection between the candidate’s name and the story of faith found in the Bible. And today, with Roxanne, it was easy. Roxanne means radiant, or bright (and she really does live into her name) and in our Gospel reading an angel descends from heaven, ‘His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.’ Radiant. Now, ‘angel’ means ‘messenger,’ sent by God, sometimes a heavenly being, sometimes a human being. Today we commissioned Roxanne to be a messenger sent by God.

The angel, and then Jesus himself, have the same message for the women: do not be afraid; go and tell.

Do not be afraid, or do not fear, is the most-repeated Instruction we are given in the Bible—which says something about being human. And I wonder who or what you are afraid of?

Some of you might be here today because you know and love Jesus, but you are afraid to tell others about him. I want to say to you that there are half a dozen or more adults who have become part of our church who weren’t part of any church a year ago. If you tell someone about Jesus, they might have been waiting for you to do just that. Even if they aren’t interested, what’s the worst that can happen? Easter tells us that the worst thing that can happen does not get the last word, and God will honour those who trust him with their fear.

It may be that you are afraid of God. Many people are. Many people have been taught that God is quick to disapprove, quick to get angry; that if we step out of line, he will strike us down with a lightning bolt. This is blasphemy. God reveals himself to Moses as full of loving-kindness, slow to anger—and even when he does get angry, he is not violent but moved to pity; faithful to his nature even when we are faithless.

In our first reading this morning we heard Jesus’ friend Peter proclaim, ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ The point is not that if you want to be acceptable to God you must fear him; but that if you are afraid of God, you need to know that you are acceptable to him.

In the Wisdom section of the library we call the Bible, we learn that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Everything else described as ‘of the Lord’—the arm of the Lord, the mountain of the Lord, the angel of the Lord—belongs to God, not us. The fear of the Lord is giving what we are afraid of to God and saying, this is yours now. That is what Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Of all the things we might be afraid of—some with good reason—God isn’t meant to be one of them. Jesus comes into the world so that we might know that, in him, God is with us, and for us.

Finally, some of you might be afraid of death. We live in a society that is petrified of dying, that is in total denial of death. It is almost a civic duty to Botox, to not allow yourself to visibly age. But denial is never healthy. The will of the Father is that the Son should become human; should live, and die, as humans do. The Father glorifies the Son for this faithfulness by raising him from the dead. And so we can face our own mortality, because Jesus says to us: Do not be afraid; I have walked this way ahead of you, and I will walk this way again alongside you. I know what lies beyond.

Do not be afraid. That is the message of Easter. That doesn’t mean that we won’t ever be afraid of anything or anyone; it means that we are instructed, again, to place that fear in the hands of Jesus.

That is the message I want you to hear today. Do not be afraid. Go and tell.

Acts 10.34-43

‘Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ-he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’’

Matthew 28.1-10

‘After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’ So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’’