'Divine Defiance & Human Hope' : A Sermon for Easter Day 2019

I’m sure that for many of us, the abiding image of Holy Week 2019 will be that terrible fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris.

As the scenes of the inferno hit our TV screens, as the great Spire collapsed, I for one shuddered as I recalled similar scenes at Grenfell Tower and indeed on 9/11. At least on this occasion, despite the destruction, there was no dreadful loss of life, and no-one was rendered homeless; and I’ll return to this in a moment.

The image that most haunts me, though, is the photograph that many of you will have seen that was taken inside the Cathedral when the fire had finally been put out. It shows the nave – the main body of the church - a scene of darkness and dereliction, but right at the front, at the East End, the Cross is shining brightly. It’s a powerful symbol of divine defiance and human hope; truly a light in the darkness.

The various reactions to the fire have been fascinating.

For the people of France, and especially the Parisiennes, there is understandably a real sense of grief for a major landmark and a symbol of their national identity and common life. We would doubtless feel the same about St Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey.

But some have spoken of the Cathedral as a ‘monument’. This, I believe, is entirely inappropriate. Monuments look purely to the past, often commemorating the dead or reminding us of events long ago. Notre Dame was and is no monument. It’s a Church – a place where for  centuries people have gathered to celebrate their faith in a living God, to encounter the risen Christ in the sacraments, a place where people find spiritual healing and forgiveness, comfort and hope in the here and now.

Having said that, of course, we should also remember that the Church itself is made not of bricks and mortar but of human flesh, blood and spirit, for it is Christ’s followers who are the Church; and the life of the Church will go on regardless of what may happen to even the greatest of our church buildings.

It’s no accident that in this service today we don’t say ‘Alleluia Christ has risen’. Instead we say, ‘Alleluia, Christ is risen.’ We use the present tense because what we are celebrating isn’t just some historic event that happened over two thousand years ago; it’s a reality for us here and now. As followers of Christ, we’re not walking, talking monuments to the past; we are rather – or should be – a living testimony to the Christ of the present who is very much alive in us.

If our risen Christ is merely a figure of history – or worse, myth – and if we’re content to leave him there, at a safe distance, then we are missing out on the true meaning of the resurrection; we’re missing out on the new life that we too are offered.

So what does it mean for us that Christ is risen?

On that first Easter morning, when the disciples entered the tomb, all they found were the abandoned grave-clothes. Jesus wasn’t there, either dead or resurrected. On that first Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene met with the risen Jesus, she at first didn’t recognise him. When she did recognise him, as he gently uttered her name, Jesus told her not to hold on to him, but to go and tell the other disciples what had happened.

So it is for those of us who dare to call ourselves an Easter people. We don’t always find Jesus in the places we expect to find him; sometimes he appears in very unexpected places.We may find him in a great Cathedral, but we may also find him in that homeless person in the street or in the victim of a tower block fire. We can’t hold on to him, keeping him where we want him – safe in the protected sanctuary of the Church or Cathedral, for the living, risen, ascended Christ goes where he wants to go.

Christ’s overcoming death was the most potent act of divine defiance, and it’s the most wonderful source of human hope. The challenge for us, then, is to be ready for our encounter with Jesus, wherever and however it may occur. That is what it means to be an Easter People – to believe in a Jesus who is alive now, and to allow him to enter, to shape and to transform our lives.

Another interesting reaction to the Notre Dame fire has been the readiness of both the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy alike to give so generously to the cost of the cathedral’s restoration. This has prompted many people to ask, ‘Where were they and where was their money when Grenfell tower burned?’. It’s a tough question, but it’s an important one.

The Jesus that I see in the Gospels has a very definite concern for, and indeed a bias towards, the poor and the needy. I have no doubt that when we meet him as our judge, he will judge us on our response to the needy and homeless – to the victims of incidents like Grenfell Tower – long before he judges us on our response to the Notre Dame fire. 

And yet this is the same Jesus who allowed a sinful, disreputable woman, to bathe his feet with expensive ointment. This is a God whose love for us is so great that we are moved to offer him the greatest, the most beautiful and the very best that we can in our worship. So perhaps we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of Notre Dame versus Grenfell Tower but should instead be responding with concern and generosity to both.

Celebrating the resurrection doesn’t mean looking to the past but living fully in the here and how. Being an Easter People means believing in a Jesus who is alive now, and to allow him to enter, to shape and to transform our lives.

Living the Resurrection doesn’t mean honouring monuments but building or re-building for the future.  That doesn’t just mean rebuilding a Cathedral ravaged by fire; it also means rebuilding our environment and taking far better care of the world that God created and gave us, which we are so ready to destroy, whether through callousness or carelessness.

Whatever we may think about some of the tactics of the so-called ‘Extinction Rebellion’, there is most certainly a desperately urgent need to hear its message and for all of us to change our behaviour. Our environment is dying and is desperately in need of new life. To those of us who are Christians and believe in a Creator God, this surely has to be one of our utmost priorities.   

Celebrating the Resurrection means being the Church – being the risen, living body of Christ - even when around us there is darkness and dereliction, death and destruction.

So as we once again celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, may we be inspired by divine defiance and energised by human hope that we may truly be an Easter People.

Amen.