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Radcliffe Sermon - The Temple Church
Exodus 24 & John 20.19 – 31
Easter 2006

The Easter number of the Spectator included a survey on ‘Did Jesus really rise from the dead?’ A surprising number of well know people, from George Galloway to Takei, declared themselves to be firm believers. Whereas a few Archbishops seemed nervous of commenting!

This is a question that appears to be gripping people at the moment. At dinner in my college the other night, I was insistently interrogated by a guest as to whether the tomb was empty, and over port! I was stopped in the street by an undergraduate who wanted reassurance that it is all true. Dan Brown is making millions by claiming that it never happened, but fortunately we have the valiant Master of the Temple to oppose him. It is extraordinary that almost two thousand years after this Jew died in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire, we are still arguing passionately about what happened to his body. Lawyers are used to arguing about what happened to bodies, but not for so long.

In the Easter Vigil, when we renew our baptismal promises, the question is still put to us: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of the Father? And more than a thousand million people all over the planet responded: I believe.

But what difference does it make? A German theologian once remarked that Jesus may well have risen from the dead, but he could not see what that had to do with us. So what?

Our faith is certainly that something happened to Jesus. The Easter faith of the disciples was not just a wonderful feeling that all manner of things shall be well. The Father raised him from the dead. I believe that this means that the tomb was empty.

But the resurrection is more than something that happened to Jesus. It is happening to us. We believe that the resurrection defeated death. This is the Father’s victory over all that stands between God and us, and between each other.

In the Eucharist, we remember what happened the night before Jesus died. He celebrated a meal with his disciples in which he confronted and embraced everything that destroys our communion with each other and God. There was Judas who would sell him and Peter who was about to deny him. There was greed, dishonesty, cowardice and incomprehension and self-deceit. Above all he embraced his death, the ultimate enemy of human communion. The Last Supper holds within itself everything that makes human beings strangers to each other, all enmity and distance. And on Easter Sunday it was overcome, not just for Jesus but for humanity.

The gospel accounts are not literal historical reports of what happened to Jesus and the disciples. They are accounts of what really happened and you can never give an account of what really happened by just taking a video. A photograph of a kiss would not tell you what really happens when you kiss someone. For that you have to explore the meaning of the event, and that is what the gospels do brilliantly.

In the gospel that we have just heard, Jesus appears to the disciples and says, ‘Peace be with you.’ This is not just something that he happened to say, and he might just as well have said, ‘Good evening’ or ‘What a useless lot you were on Friday!’ He says ‘Peace be with you’ because he is God’s peace among us. The Resurrection is the victory of peace over violence. To believe in the Resurrection is to have faith that death does not have the last word.

Jesus says to them, ‘Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.’ This is because he is in person God’s forgiveness. Nothing that we have ever done can come between God and us. Love is always stronger than hatred.

The Resurrection means that we belong to each other in a radically new way. We are not ultimately solitary individuals, but part of each other in Christ. This was brilliantly put by the Pope in his sermon for the Easter Vigil two weeks ago. I confess that I am not a great quoter of Popes. I lived in Rome for too long. I remember one senior figure preaching and the only words of his own were ‘As the Holy Father says.’

But in this case the Pope’s sermon is so powerful that I cannot resist. He is commenting on St Paul’s phrase, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’

“This liberation of our "I" from its isolation, this finding oneself in a new subject means finding oneself within the vastness of God. …To live one’s own life as a continual entry into this open space: this is the meaning of being baptized, of being Christian. This is the joy of the Easter Vigil. The Resurrection is not a thing of the past, the Resurrection has reached us and seized us. We grasp hold of it, we grasp hold of the risen Lord, and we know that he holds us firmly even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand, and thus we also hold on to one another’s hands, and we become one single subject, not just one thing. I, but no longer I.”

This is all very lovely, but what can we say to those who do not believe? What can we say to that young undergraduate who stopped me in the street wanting to know if it is all true? What can we say to ourselves when we doubt? If you look at the land of Jesus’ death and resurrection, there is not much sign that forgiveness has the victory. If you go to Iraq, then where is this peace that Jesus talked about? Why should we believe the gospels?

First of all our faith is sustained by little glimpses of the Risen Christ, even in the Middle East. I think of a Dominican Lay Woman, Sheila Provender. Sheila is an American, but the moment that war in Iraq became probable, she moved to Baghdad as part of a team of people who wished to be close to the Iraqis as a sign of peace. She has passed most of the time since living there, without any protection, in the middle of the Muslim community, trusting in their friendship and protection. She saw her friend Tom Fox, being taken away to be killed but she was still stayed. She is a small sign of the Risen Lord who appeared to the disciples and said, ‘Peace be with you.

I was in Zimbabwe in February. I visited an Aids clinic run by the Church in Harare. It is just a collection of tin huts. It is called Mashambanzou. That means literally, ‘when the elephants wash.’ Dawn is when the elephants wash, at least in Zimbabwe, I don’t know about London. They go down to the river and splash around, and squirt water at each other. So it is the time of new beginnings, of hope. I was bowled over by the joy of the people there who faced death. We laughed with a kid called Courage. This is a little sign of the Risen Lord who shows us his wounds. A Zimbabwean Dominican sister told me that she had lost three of her siblings to Aids, but they died smiling, at the time that the elephants wash. This is a sign of Jesus who says ‘Do not be afraid.’

We have to learn to spot the signs of victory. When Jesus rose from the dead, the disciples found it difficult to recognize him. MM thought that he was the gardner, the disciples on the beech were unsure. That was not because he had changed so much – that all his hair had gone white for example, or because he glowed in the dark. It is because they had never really known him before. Herbert McCabe wrote, ‘People are not just recognizing Jesus as the man they knew was killed. They are recognizing him as the man they sort of knew and thought they knew, but didn’t really know until now.’ To recognise Jesus is to see that he is the one in whom death and hatred is defeated. That means learning to look at everything differently.

If we look at the world cynically or with fatalism, then we will not see the signs of the Resurrection. I thought that the film Love Actually was rather underrated. It shows us that love is happening all around us, in all sorts of unexpected forms. It ends in Heathrow, with dozens of people expressing their love for each other, hugging, meeting again. But you have to learn to spot love and forgiveness, like the disciples learning to recognise the Risen Lord. The censorious or cynical eye cannot see it.

Finally, faith is a gift. If we do not have it, then we should ask for it insistently. And if we have it, then we should give thanks and not presume on it. Jesus said to Thomas ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’ And if you are a bit unsure, like most of us sometimes, then pray: ‘I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.’