Sermon for Easter Day. Tragedy or Good News?

Acts 10: 36 - 43

You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Luke 24: 1 - 12

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.

9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

Those ancient Greeks knew a thing or two about life. I guess after a long day tending vines in the hot sunshine going to sit under an olive grove in the cool of the evening was perhaps conducive to a philosophical turn of mind. Maybe if the ancient Britons had benefited from a little more wine and sunshine, rather than the wind, rain and porridge of our islands, then they too may have come up with something more sophisticated than houses made of compacted mud and horse hair, and rushing off into battle naked and painted blue.

If I ever meet an ancient Briton I will no doubt have to apologise for such an ill-informed opinion of their sophistication.

I hear there are some ancient Britons residing in the parish.

One interesting idea that came out of ancient Greece is that of ‘tragedy’, the idea that life is essentially tragic, that is not to say that life has to be miserable all the time, but that there is an inevitable rise and fall in human affairs. All things, no matter how glorious and splendid, are temporary. Great Empires come and go, even if at their height they seem utterly unassailable. Heroes have their moments of triumph, but their inevitable downfall awaits them. Every mighty civilisation must crumble into dust, and all that is left of any human endeavour, whether great or small, is memories that in time fade to nothing.

The ancient Hebrews, the people of the Old Testament had a similar idea, they believed in the eternal God who, as Isaiah writes, “...brings princes to naught,

and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.”

The Victorian poet, Shelley, captures this mood of the tragic in his poem ‘Ozymandias’, which tells of the colossal statue of some great ruler from the past, now half broken down, standing in the sands of a desert, and on the pedestal are written these words, ‘'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'’ and yet, the poem continues…

‘Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

This idea of life as essentially tragic has come down through the centuries to us, Shakespeare worked with it in plays such as Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, it sometimes even shapes the plot of EastEnders - if you care to notice.

The Greek idea of tragedy tells us that the seed of the rise and fall of great empires, and of great men, is sown right at the beginning of their story. It is their fatal flaw, that inherent quality in a hero that brings both their successes and their downfall. Achilles is the model for such heroes , he was dipped in the river Styx soon after being born so that he might be made invulnerable to attack, but his heel was left unwashed in the waters because was where the goddess held him between her fingers. Achilles’ being dipped in the river is then the origin of his greatness as a warrior, and equally the origin of his downfall. He was killed by Paris who shot an arrow into his heel, the one part of his body that was vulnerable.

I once heard an economist describe the 2008 Financial Crash as a Greek Tragedy. He explained that not only is there an inevitable rise and fall in all human affairs, including high finance, but that the causes of the crash were the very same causes that had powered the boom times. The fuel injected combination of limitless credit, and limitless greed, had been both a turbo-powered economic driver, and a deadly toxin. I was surprised to hear an economist drawing on ideas from ancient Greece; they usually much prefer statistics and graphs.

The story of Jesus can be told as an heroic tragedy. The carpenter’s son who emerges from obscurity because of the eloquence of his teachings, and the power of his miracles. Yet it is his challenging of the authorities, and charismatic gentleness, that both endears him to the crowds and sows the seeds of his downfall.

The life of Jesus seems to end in failure, the political authority of Rome, and of the Jewish religious authorities, is violently asserted in his trial and crucifixion. Jesus is entombed, and his disciples are scattered in fear and desolation.

But this isn’t a Greek story, it is a Christian one, it is the story of a new understanding, a New Testament, that asserts that life is not fundamentally tragic. The story of Jesus does not deny the pain and suffering, it's right there in the Passion narrative, but then there is the good news of Easter Day.

The resurrection was not only good news for Jesus, and good news for his disciples, it was and is good news for everyone, in all times and places, in all cultures and nations, it is good news for humanity. The life of Jesus tells that if you trust in God life need not be seen as tragic.

To understand this you need to remember who Jesus is, to do the Greek thing and go to the very beginning of the story. The disciple John, in his account of the life of Jesus, writes that Jesus was already there at beginning of all things, and that it was through Jesus all things came into being. So the story of Jesus doesn’t start with his birth, his birth is only the start date of his human life.

The story of Jesus is from before time and story began. The bible tells us that before time began Jesus was with God, because Jesus is the Son of God.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit dwell in eternal unity.

Such profound unity that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

At his birth Jesus stepped out of eternity into our temporal world.

The author of life stepped into the story he had written.

This is who was born at Bethlehem, and nailed to the cross at Calvary, the author of life, the one through whom all things were created. At the cross the creative power of life meets the destructive power of death, the nails are driven in, and life drains away, down against the wood of the cross, down to the dusty soil, down even to the cold stone tomb.

If the story ended there it would have confirmed that life was essentially tragic. The story would have been tragic for Jesus, and for the disciples, but it would also have been tragic for us, it would mean that we were doomed from the start, that beauty, love, truth, justice – these things rise and fall under the inexorable power of time and death.

We would be left to conclude that life is swallowed up in death, no matter how hard we struggle, no matter what we achieve, destruction will swallow it up, and we will come to nothing, all our suffering and strife will ultimately be in vain…but that is not how the story ends…it is not a tragedy.

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

As the disciple John exclaimed in his account of the life of Jesus, ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’

Easter morning is about the nature of existence, is it tragic or is it good news?

Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we can see that,

"Goodness is stronger than evil; Love is stronger than hate;

Light is stronger than darkness; Life is stronger than death."

Life is not tragic, there may be tragedy, there may be pain as well as joy, there may be suffering as well as good times, the good may get crucified, but ultimately life wins - that is the testimony of the cross.

If you follow the way of Jesus, the way he taught his disciples, God can bring you through suffering and pain into new life, both in this world, and the next. Even death is not the end it seems to be, through Jesus we can pass through death into new life.

The story of Christ risen from the grave is your story, claim it as your own.

Amen.