Homily For Easter 2025
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The church throughout the world celebrates the joy of the resurrection. The reality of the resurrection is the basis of the blessing that our Kenyan brothers and sisters celebrated this morning; They with one accord said at the conclusion of Holy Communion - “All our problems… We send to the cross of Christ. All our difficulties….we send to the cross of Christ. All the devil’s works…we send to the cross of Christ. All our hopes….we set on the risen Christ.” The Church throughout all times and places celebrates the hope that has risen with our Lord Jesus Christ.
The resurrection of our Lord is a historical fact that changes absolutely everything. So, this morning, we join with the disciples in wrestling with what the resurrection means for us. We read throughout the course of last week the story of Christ’s passion through the inspired lens of the four distinct Gospel writers.
They did not hide from us the gravity, the weight of Christ’s willing, deliberate suffering in the Passion narratives. The darkness of man’s sin, man’s complete commitment to self-preservation, self-deceit was on full display. Yet, Christ foretold his death on numerous occasions - as a reminder of the willing sacrifice our Lord would make. In the fullness of time, at the proper moment in human history, God gave himself for our sins. The Passion narratives confirm what we want to avoid about ourselves - that we are sinners. It confirms that our hatred to truth, our love of self is so intense that we would sacrifice anything and everything to perpetuate our projected innocence. The bad news of the Passion is that we are as exactly we have been told that we are. The bad news of the Passion is that that is how sinful men act when confronted with the truth. Good Friday is completely believable because it matches with the reality that we have experienced. So it is understandable that the disciples, the faithful women who surrounded our Lord should forget what Jesus said about his self-sacrifice on the Cross.
Particularly, the part about being raised on the third day. Our Gospel for this Easter morning features those close to Jesus - Mary Magdalene - the one who earlier in St. John’s Gospel washed our Lord’s feet with the tears of love borne of Christ’s forgiveness for her sins; the same Mary who anointed the body of Jesus with the most costly of ointment - worth a year's wages for an ordinary worker. We read that she was up before dawn on Easter Sunday, as the Sabbath was over and a new week had begun. Mary Magdalene was going to the tomb to provide dignity to our Lord’s crucified body. Then, she saw the stone that sealed the tomb had been removed from the entrance. She ran to Peter and John and told them that it appeared that someone had stolen the body of Jesus. St. John tells us that both of them ran to the tomb with John, the younger and apparently faster of the two, arriving first. John, the author of our Gospel, did not refer to himself as John but as the disciple whom Jesus loved. His identity was not wrapped up in the name he received from his parents but in that he was loved by Jesus.
We read that this disciple that Jesus loved who arrived first - stooped down to look in the tomb - he saw the burial clothes lying in perfect order. We must keep in mind that the ointments and preparation of Jesus' body would have effectively glued the burial clothes to him; it would have been more like paper mache than dry, orderly linens neatly folded. Peter, who was never known for being reticent, charged into the tomb and saw the orderliness of the burial clothes - not the dishevelled mass of linen characteristic of tomb robbers but order and deliberateness that communicated the inconceivable reality of Christ’s rising from the dead. At that point, John followed Peter into the tomb and after a moment of reflection, indeed, revelation, we read these beautiful words - “he saw and believed.” John believed in the resurrection, the resurrection that Jesus taught his disciples on numerous occasions. It seems that all of the disciples did not comprehend, understand that the Resurrection, Jesus rising again from the dead.
John believed and is counted as the first to experience the wonder of the Resurrection - the event that has redefined time; has reoriented the weekly calendar and opened the doors of eternal life to those who believe in this Jesus - millions upon millions have had the gloom of unbelief, the shadow of death and despair, lifted by Christ’s resurrection.
I recently read a bumper sticker that said, “Jesus changes everything”. Jesus does indeed change everything because the power of His resurrection wasn’t just for Him. The resurrection of Christ is the basis of our joy in the present and hope for the future. That is why we confess these final three phrases at the end of the Apostles Creed “I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
When we believe in Jesus, he calls us a new way of engaging with life. This is what Paul speaks about in our Epistle for this morning - he tells the church in Colossae -
IF ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Paul assumes Christ’s real, physical resurrection. Here, he is asking about their participation in it. Are they risen with Christ - have they been buried with Christ in baptism, and raised to walk in newness of life? Have they taken Christ’ burial and resurrection to be their own? We renewed our baptismal vows a few moments ago - declaring our intentions to walk in obedience to God. Identifying with Christ with our wills whether we were baptized as babies, as children, or as adults. The power of Christ’s resurrection beckons us to live anew.
Not in our own power, not by a stronger expression of our human wills but in fullest confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit to make a new people. Now, since we have received the gift of redemption, which we celebrate today, we are new people with new priorities - new motivations which may put us at odds with those close to us in geography - our neighbors or those close to us in blood - our families. Indeed, Christ has been risen. He has ascended to the right hand of the Father - meaning he has established his rule in heaven and earth. What remains is the final conquest of the created order… For our Lord’s resurrection is likened to D-Day, it marked the beginning of the end of the rule of Satan like the landings at Omaha Beach, Utah Beach marked the end of the Third Reich. Because Christ has conquered death, conquered our enemies, because Jesus is ruling in the present, the Christian will seek those things that are true of God’s kingdom now; he or she will seek things above, set their mind - focus their energies, purpose, meaning on pleasing God in the present.
We do so not to earn our salvation, to prove to God that we are worthy of His redemption. For we cannot offer enough good works, we have sinned too much in thought, word and deed to achieve God’s pleasure through our own actions. We are not worthy in ourselves but are declared righteous, acceptable, welcome into God’s kingdom because of Christ’s perfection and sacrifice. St. Paul says we are dead to ourselves and alive through Christ.
After telling us our status, our new citizenship, St. Paul tells us to mortify - put to death - sins of the flesh - like sexual immorality and covetousness. The apostle Paul tells them to discard - to put away - throw in the garbage bin – sins of anger including wrath and malice; sins of the tongue (slander, filthy talk and lying). In sum, he says “cast off the old self with its evil deeds, and put on the new.”
Within our Epistle there is a portion that St. Paul mentions that connects all the sins listed - he says, “for which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked yourselves when ye lived in such things.” St. Paul knows the history of these believers - they practiced these sins that bring God’s judgment, but it is no longer true of them. They turned to the Risen Christ and have now become new people. They are not defined by the evils of their past but instead by the gift of Christ’s righteousness. They are far from perfect but their lives, their characters are not generally defined by these sins. Indeed, the Colossians are a new people not defined not by race, not by ritual, wealth, class but by their union with Jesus. Making them a new people, eager for good works, delighting in the life of faith God has created them for, embodying the power of the Resurrection for a world addicted to sin and death.
So, what perplexes you this morning? Send it to the cross of Christ and set your hope on the Risen Christ. What unsolvable riddles remain in your life? Send them to the cross of Christ and set your hope on the Risen Christ. What pain, regret, or sorrow plagues you? Send them to the cross of Christ and set your hope on the Risen Christ. Beloved, crucify all that would separate you from God and set all your hope, your aspirations, your ambitions on the unfailing, incomprehensible love of Christ - our only hope - for this world and the next. Come now to the feast for God’s adopted children, those who are received of God because of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. Receive the gifts of God in the Holy Communion as fullest anticipation of the heavenly feast to which we are invited. Amen.