Easter Sunday Evening: The smell of Easter

Isaiah 61.1-4, Luke 23.50 – 24.12

I’m not going to say much this evening, partly because I have preached something approaching 5000 words over the last three days already, and I think enough is probably enough, both for me and for those of you who have followed through the whole lot.

But I did want to just draw out some thoughts from the poem I’ve just read and the readings we’ve heard today, thoughts which are triggered, in a sense, by the way in which words can sometimes sell us short, no matter how many of them we use. The problem is that words are a poor substitute for real experience. Real experience of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ would have been made up of so much more. It would have been known in all our senses – the sights and sounds of the events, of palm leaves ripped from trees, of nails being driven into wood and flesh, of crowds jostling and shouting, of the stone being rolled across the mouth of the tomb to seal it, of weeping in grief and then in joy on Easter Day.  Then there would have been the taste of Easter, of bread and wine at the Last Supper, or the sour wine offered to Christ on the cross, of fish shared in a meal on Easter evening when the risen Christ appeared to his disciples in the locked room where they were hiding. The thing which struck me most though, from our readings and poem tonight, was what Easter might have smelt like. Smell is one of the most evocative of the senses, almost impossible to describe, but unmistakeable and powerful in its ability to bring back memories, and conjure up moods and associations. What did Holy Week and Easter smell like? It started perhaps with the smell of a donkey, that animal smell, not unpleasant, but sharp and pungent. There was the smell of that night time garden of Gethsemane too, full of the scents of springtime, of blossom heavy in the air. But that was soon overwhelmed by the smell of fear – almost everyone in this story was afraid it seems to me; Christ himself as he wrestled with what he knew was coming, his disciples as they saw their dreams of him turn to dust on the cross, but the fear of Pilate and Herod and the Jewish authorities too, who saw Jesus as a threat so dangerous that only death was the answer to it. Then there was Golgotha, the killing field outside Jerusalem – we can barely imagine what that must have smelt like. The Romans normally liked to leave the bodies of their crucified victims where they were to rot; it was a powerful message to anyone else who might be inclined to cause them trouble.

It is important to bear in mind these smells as we imagine the women coming to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning on Easter Day. They come, we are told with spices and ointments, the ones usually used to anoint bodies at the time of burial. They hadn’t had time to do this for Jesus on Good Friday, so they were doing it now. Those spices and ointments were designed to mask the stench of death, to overpower it so that it would be possible to come close enough to mourn. But these women knew quite well that by now, on the third day after his death, decomposition would have thoroughly set in. All the spices in the world probably wouldn’t be enough. As they walked to the grave they were frightened of what they would find, not just of what they would see but of what they would smell. They knew the reality of death. As in most cultures it was usually the women who did the physical business of preparing bodies for burial. But still, it had to be tried for this man whom they had loved so deeply.

But when they got there they found that instead of the stench of death there was an empty tomb, smelling just of good clean rock, with graveclothes neatly folded and two angels announcing the resurrection.

In the Old Testament when Isaiah wants to speak of new hope and a new beginning for the people of Israel after their long exile in Babylon, he proclaims that on the day when God delivers them they will be given “a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning.” It is this idea which Gerald Manley Hopkins poem picks up and links with Easter. “Beauty now for ashes wear/ Perfumes for the garb of woe.”

Resurrection isn’t just an intellectual idea, something to be grasped with the brain. It is something which affects the whole of our lives, which is known through our actions and attitudes, in the depths of our being, perfusing us like a scent, getting into every part of our being. The life and love of God, undefeated by all the hatred and destruction the world can throw at it, changes everything for us when we have discovered it. Life smells different from death. We may not be able to put it into words, but we know it when we find it.

But in order to discover that new life God promises, the new hope, the new beginning that we long for, like those women at the tomb, we have to be brave enough to go to the place we fear the most, the place we are sure will stink of death, the places in our lives where we have failed, the places in our world where people suffer. Like that tomb in Jerusalem, these are the places where God chooses to work, first, foremost and most powerfully , the places where he is needed most yet least expected. If we stay in our locked rooms, in our comfort zones, then we will never know the fullness of Easter joy, that Christ is risen indeed, not just in Jerusalem, but in us.

Amen

Easter Gerald Manley Hopkins

Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away:
Know ye, this is Easter Day.

Build His church and deck His shrine;
Empty though it be on earth;
Ye have kept your choicest wine-
Let it flow for heavenly mirth;
Pluck the harp and breathe the horn:
Know ye not 'tis Easter morn ?

Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter's robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day.

Beauty now for ashes wear,
Perfumes for the garb of woe.
Chaplets for dishevelled hair,
Dances for sad footsteps slow;
Open wide your hearts that they
Let in joy this Easter Day.

Seek God's house in happy throng;
Crowded let His table be;
Mingle praises, prayer and song,
Singing to the Trinity.
Henceforth let your souls alway
Make each morn an Easter Day.

Easter Sunday Evening: The smell of Easter

Isaiah 61.1-4, Luke 23.50 – 24.12

I’m not going to say much this evening, partly because I have preached something approaching 5000 words over the last three days already, and I think enough is probably enough, both for me and for those of you who have followed through the whole lot.

But I did want to just draw out some thoughts from the poem I’ve just read and the readings we’ve heard today, thoughts which are triggered, in a sense, by the way in which words can sometimes sell us short, no matter how many of them we use. The problem is that words are a poor substitute for real experience. Real experience of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ would have been made up of so much more. It would have been known in all our senses – the sights and sounds of the events, of palm leaves ripped from trees, of nails being driven into wood and flesh, of crowds jostling and shouting, of the stone being rolled across the mouth of the tomb to seal it, of weeping in grief and then in joy on Easter Day.  Then there would have been the taste of Easter, of bread and wine at the Last Supper, or the sour wine offered to Christ on the cross, of fish shared in a meal on Easter evening when the risen Christ appeared to his disciples in the locked room where they were hiding. The thing which struck me most though, from our readings and poem tonight, was what Easter might have smelt like. Smell is one of the most evocative of the senses, almost impossible to describe, but unmistakeable and powerful in its ability to bring back memories, and conjure up moods and associations. What did Holy Week and Easter smell like? It started perhaps with the smell of a donkey, that animal smell, not unpleasant, but sharp and pungent. There was the smell of that night time garden of Gethsemane too, full of the scents of springtime, of blossom heavy in the air. But that was soon overwhelmed by the smell of fear – almost everyone in this story was afraid it seems to me; Christ himself as he wrestled with what he knew was coming, his disciples as they saw their dreams of him turn to dust on the cross, but the fear of Pilate and Herod and the Jewish authorities too, who saw Jesus as a threat so dangerous that only death was the answer to it. Then there was Golgotha, the killing field outside Jerusalem – we can barely imagine what that must have smelt like. The Romans normally liked to leave the bodies of their crucified victims where they were to rot; it was a powerful message to anyone else who might be inclined to cause them trouble.

It is important to bear in mind these smells as we imagine the women coming to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning on Easter Day. They come, we are told with spices and ointments, the ones usually used to anoint bodies at the time of burial. They hadn’t had time to do this for Jesus on Good Friday, so they were doing it now. Those spices and ointments were designed to mask the stench of death, to overpower it so that it would be possible to come close enough to mourn. But these women knew quite well that by now, on the third day after his death, decomposition would have thoroughly set in. All the spices in the world probably wouldn’t be enough. As they walked to the grave they were frightened of what they would find, not just of what they would see but of what they would smell. They knew the reality of death. As in most cultures it was usually the women who did the physical business of preparing bodies for burial. But still, it had to be tried for this man whom they had loved so deeply.

But when they got there they found that instead of the stench of death there was an empty tomb, smelling just of good clean rock, with graveclothes neatly folded and two angels announcing the resurrection.

In the Old Testament when Isaiah wants to speak of new hope and a new beginning for the people of Israel after their long exile in Babylon, he proclaims that on the day when God delivers them they will be given “a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning.” It is this idea which Gerald Manley Hopkins poem picks up and links with Easter. “Beauty now for ashes wear/ Perfumes for the garb of woe.”

Resurrection isn’t just an intellectual idea, something to be grasped with the brain. It is something which affects the whole of our lives, which is known through our actions and attitudes, in the depths of our being, perfusing us like a scent, getting into every part of our being. The life and love of God, undefeated by all the hatred and destruction the world can throw at it, changes everything for us when we have discovered it. Life smells different from death. We may not be able to put it into words, but we know it when we find it.

But in order to discover that new life God promises, the new hope, the new beginning that we long for, like those women at the tomb, we have to be brave enough to go to the place we fear the most, the place we are sure will stink of death, the places in our lives where we have failed, the places in our world where people suffer. Like that tomb in Jerusalem, these are the places where God chooses to work, first, foremost and most powerfully , the places where he is needed most yet least expected. If we stay in our locked rooms, in our comfort zones, then we will never know the fullness of Easter joy, that Christ is risen indeed, not just in Jerusalem, but in us.

Amen

Easter Gerald Manley Hopkins

Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away:
Know ye, this is Easter Day.

Build His church and deck His shrine;
Empty though it be on earth;
Ye have kept your choicest wine-
Let it flow for heavenly mirth;
Pluck the harp and breathe the horn:
Know ye not 'tis Easter morn ?

Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter's robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day.

Beauty now for ashes wear,
Perfumes for the garb of woe.
Chaplets for dishevelled hair,
Dances for sad footsteps slow;
Open wide your hearts that they
Let in joy this Easter Day.

Seek God's house in happy throng;
Crowded let His table be;
Mingle praises, prayer and song,
Singing to the Trinity.
Henceforth let your souls alway
Make each morn an Easter Day.

Easter Sunday: Real resurrection

“But these words seemed to the apostles an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (Luke 24.11)

I am very tempted when I hear these words from the Gospel to roll my eyes, give a heavy sigh and say “it was ever thus…” The women who proclaimed the news that Jesus had risen weren’t the first in human history to find their words dismissed as mere chatter by the men in their lives, and they wouldn’t be the last either. And that is an important part of the point Luke is making here.  All the Gospels give unusual prominence for their time and culture to the women in the story of Jesus, but Luke in particular underlines it again and again. In his Gospel Jesus is often seen honouring women, healing women, affirming women as they follow him. In the culture of the time that would have been seen as revolutionary, and it is one of the things that shaped the early church. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female. All are one in Christ Jesus.” said St Paul (Galatians 3.28). Creating a new community where the old dividing lines of ethnic identity, social status and gender no longer defined people was a struggle, but it was central to the message of the Gospel, so it’s not surprising to find the role of women emphasized in the Gospels, or that some of the characters in them find this hard to take.

But let’s cut these apostles a little slack today. It surely is expecting a bit much to think that anyone would have instantly believed this story, whoever it came from. After all, would we believe it if someone –male or female – came rushing into church today saying that a dead person had returned to life? I doubt it.

The people of the first century wouldn’t have thought it was impossible for the dead to live again – they didn’t have our scientific understanding of the boundaries between life and death; as far as they were concerned, life and death were in God’s hands, and if he chose to raise someone from the dead it was perfectly within his powers to do so. But that didn’t mean they expected it to happen.

The possibility of resurrection was the last thing in anyone’s minds on this first Easter Day. That goes for the women as much as the men. They’d gone to the tomb with the spices and ointments that would have normally been used for burial. There hadn’t been time on Good Friday to anoint Jesus and prepare his body properly, so they were going back to do it now. They were expecting death, not life, as any of us would have done. But when they got there they found that nothing was as they’d thought it would be. The stone was rolled away and “two men in dazzling clothes” were standing there. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” they ask. “He is not here, but has risen”. Jesus had said this would happen, they say, but clearly the women hadn’t taken it in at the time, or hadn’t thought for a moment that he actually meant it. It is only because they are here at the tomb, having the experience, that it becomes real to them. They would have been no more likely to believe this tale than their male counterparts if they hadn’t been.

But if we can understand, and forgive, the apostles’ disbelief of the women, the way they deliver their verdict is still a bit painful. They dismiss it as an “idle tale”. Ouch. Most of them don’t even think it is worth checking out. It’s only Peter who makes the short trip to the burial ground to look for himself. 

That sets a pattern for the accounts of all the other resurrection appearances in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus has to make all the running himself. Later that day he appears to two of his disciples as they trudge back to Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. They’ve heard rumours of his resurrection, but somehow they can’t face the possibility that it might be true, and they don’t recognise this stranger on the road with them. It is as if they are fed up with the whole business, as if they have decided to have nothing more to do with it. It is only after he has walked seven miles in the wrong direction with them, away from Jerusalem where they really need to be, that the penny drops.  As they share supper with him they realise who he is. They rush back with their news, to find the disciples still in hiding. At that point Jesus again takes the initiative, appearing in the room, sitting down to eat with them too.  It’s not just that they can’t believe Jesus might have risen; it is as if they think that even if he has, it is nothing to do with them.

When the apostles describe the women’s announcement as “an idle tale” that says it all. Something that is idle isn’t going anywhere, isn’t getting anything done, doesn’t really make any difference. The Greek word which that phrase translates can also mean a “trinket” or a “bauble”, something decorative, glittery, appealing in a superficial way, but not really worth anything much. As far as they are concerned the resurrection might have happened, or it might not have happened, but either way it’s someone else’s story, not theirs. It is only as each of them meets the risen Christ for themselves that things change. At that point, the idle tale, the trinket, becomes a life-changing event that goes to the deepest part of them and transforms them utterly.

The early Christians who told these stories of resurrection, and in many cases died because of their commitment to following the way of Christ, only had the courage and strength to do so because they had found in Christ something so precious that nothing, even the threat of death, would induce them to give it up. We don’t know exactly what they saw on that first Easter Day – the Gospel accounts all differ and they are full of things unsaid and unexplained, loose ends and mysteries. But whatever happened it changed those who were there completely. It convinced them, to use the words of Desmond Tutu, that “Goodness is stronger than evil; Love is stronger than hate; Light is stronger than darkness; Life is stronger than death.”  Time and again they found they were encountering the risen Christ in one another in those new communities where there was no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female. Light dawned in their lives, and they found acceptance, forgiveness, reconciliation, a whole new purpose and meaning to life.

So what about us? My experience is that establishing the facts of the resurrection story – what we think we'd have seen if we'd been there - is often the least important factor in Christian faith. In fact when we get obsessed with trying to pin down what “really” happened, we can end up robbing the story of its power, because there is no way we can ever answer those questions. It becomes an absorbing academic puzzle, or a bone of contention to argue over, but it makes no difference to us. It is something long ago and far away. In a sense, we turn it into an “idle tale” ourselves when we treat it like this. What really matters is not that we understand the resurrection, but that we experience it. And that can only happen as we dare to live Christ’s message of love, when we seek reconciliation instead of revenge, when we carry on working for justice and doing what is right, despite the knockbacks and the disappointments. When we do that, we start to find life in unexpected places where all we thought we’d find was death.

I’ve known this in my own life, and in the lives of many others I have met. I think of a friend of mine – some of you will have heard me talk about him before. He’s a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, who used to beg for money on the streets to fund his addictions, but has now been clean and sober for well over a decade. The drugs and alcohol have done their damage though, leaving him with all sorts of physical and mental problems which he will never be free of, and life is a huge struggle for him. But he keeps on, day by day. Sometimes he phones me up and says, “Anne – I’ve just got a mustard seed of faith today, but it’s enough. God is with me, and I still haven’t had a drink…” He is giving help to others now too, giving back something in gratitude for the help he’s received. That’s resurrection. That’s what it looks like and feels like – not an idle tale, a trinket, an extraordinary story from long ago, but the essential food and drink for someone on a very hard journey. My friend has never, to my knowledge, worried about how exactly a dead man could come to life again, how he could appear in a locked room, or suddenly be walking along the road to Emmaus. All he knows is that somehow, from somewhere the strength he needs seems to appear when he needs it, and that is the miracle that matters to him.

I see the reality of resurrection often in the course of my work in people like him, people who have gone through horrific experiences, who have every reason to let hatred and suspicion swallow them up, yet somehow find the power to love instead, people who face what seem like insuperable odds in life, yet still have hope for the future, and a concern for others too. I see it in people like those women at the tomb, people whom the world might have written off, but who discover that they are precious in God’s eyes, with gifts to give and a message to share, despite what others might think. That’s resurrection – not an idle tale, but the knowledge of God’s presence and God’s love, light in the darkness, strength in the suffering, comfort in the loss, hope in the hard slog, where we are, here and now. The most important question for us this Easter day is not whether we believe that God raised Christ from death 2000 years ago, or, if we do, how he did it, but whether we are prepared to let God raise us from death to new life now.

Amen

Easter Sunday: Real resurrection

“But these words seemed to the apostles an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (Luke 24.11)

I am very tempted when I hear these words from the Gospel to roll my eyes, give a heavy sigh and say “it was ever thus…” The women who proclaimed the news that Jesus had risen weren’t the first in human history to find their words dismissed as mere chatter by the men in their lives, and they wouldn’t be the last either. And that is an important part of the point Luke is making here.  All the Gospels give unusual prominence for their time and culture to the women in the story of Jesus, but Luke in particular underlines it again and again. In his Gospel Jesus is often seen honouring women, healing women, affirming women as they follow him. In the culture of the time that would have been seen as revolutionary, and it is one of the things that shaped the early church. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female. All are one in Christ Jesus.” said St Paul (Galatians 3.28). Creating a new community where the old dividing lines of ethnic identity, social status and gender no longer defined people was a struggle, but it was central to the message of the Gospel, so it’s not surprising to find the role of women emphasized in the Gospels, or that some of the characters in them find this hard to take.

But let’s cut these apostles a little slack today. It surely is expecting a bit much to think that anyone would have instantly believed this story, whoever it came from. After all, would we believe it if someone –male or female – came rushing into church today saying that a dead person had returned to life? I doubt it.

The people of the first century wouldn’t have thought it was impossible for the dead to live again – they didn’t have our scientific understanding of the boundaries between life and death; as far as they were concerned, life and death were in God’s hands, and if he chose to raise someone from the dead it was perfectly within his powers to do so. But that didn’t mean they expected it to happen.

The possibility of resurrection was the last thing in anyone’s minds on this first Easter Day. That goes for the women as much as the men. They’d gone to the tomb with the spices and ointments that would have normally been used for burial. There hadn’t been time on Good Friday to anoint Jesus and prepare his body properly, so they were going back to do it now. They were expecting death, not life, as any of us would have done. But when they got there they found that nothing was as they’d thought it would be. The stone was rolled away and “two men in dazzling clothes” were standing there. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” they ask. “He is not here, but has risen”. Jesus had said this would happen, they say, but clearly the women hadn’t taken it in at the time, or hadn’t thought for a moment that he actually meant it. It is only because they are here at the tomb, having the experience, that it becomes real to them. They would have been no more likely to believe this tale than their male counterparts if they hadn’t been.

But if we can understand, and forgive, the apostles’ disbelief of the women, the way they deliver their verdict is still a bit painful. They dismiss it as an “idle tale”. Ouch. Most of them don’t even think it is worth checking out. It’s only Peter who makes the short trip to the burial ground to look for himself. 

That sets a pattern for the accounts of all the other resurrection appearances in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus has to make all the running himself. Later that day he appears to two of his disciples as they trudge back to Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. They’ve heard rumours of his resurrection, but somehow they can’t face the possibility that it might be true, and they don’t recognise this stranger on the road with them. It is as if they are fed up with the whole business, as if they have decided to have nothing more to do with it. It is only after he has walked seven miles in the wrong direction with them, away from Jerusalem where they really need to be, that the penny drops.  As they share supper with him they realise who he is. They rush back with their news, to find the disciples still in hiding. At that point Jesus again takes the initiative, appearing in the room, sitting down to eat with them too.  It’s not just that they can’t believe Jesus might have risen; it is as if they think that even if he has, it is nothing to do with them.

When the apostles describe the women’s announcement as “an idle tale” that says it all. Something that is idle isn’t going anywhere, isn’t getting anything done, doesn’t really make any difference. The Greek word which that phrase translates can also mean a “trinket” or a “bauble”, something decorative, glittery, appealing in a superficial way, but not really worth anything much. As far as they are concerned the resurrection might have happened, or it might not have happened, but either way it’s someone else’s story, not theirs. It is only as each of them meets the risen Christ for themselves that things change. At that point, the idle tale, the trinket, becomes a life-changing event that goes to the deepest part of them and transforms them utterly.

The early Christians who told these stories of resurrection, and in many cases died because of their commitment to following the way of Christ, only had the courage and strength to do so because they had found in Christ something so precious that nothing, even the threat of death, would induce them to give it up. We don’t know exactly what they saw on that first Easter Day – the Gospel accounts all differ and they are full of things unsaid and unexplained, loose ends and mysteries. But whatever happened it changed those who were there completely. It convinced them, to use the words of Desmond Tutu, that “Goodness is stronger than evil; Love is stronger than hate; Light is stronger than darkness; Life is stronger than death.”  Time and again they found they were encountering the risen Christ in one another in those new communities where there was no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female. Light dawned in their lives, and they found acceptance, forgiveness, reconciliation, a whole new purpose and meaning to life.

So what about us? My experience is that establishing the facts of the resurrection story – what we think we'd have seen if we'd been there - is often the least important factor in Christian faith. In fact when we get obsessed with trying to pin down what “really” happened, we can end up robbing the story of its power, because there is no way we can ever answer those questions. It becomes an absorbing academic puzzle, or a bone of contention to argue over, but it makes no difference to us. It is something long ago and far away. In a sense, we turn it into an “idle tale” ourselves when we treat it like this. What really matters is not that we understand the resurrection, but that we experience it. And that can only happen as we dare to live Christ’s message of love, when we seek reconciliation instead of revenge, when we carry on working for justice and doing what is right, despite the knockbacks and the disappointments. When we do that, we start to find life in unexpected places where all we thought we’d find was death.

I’ve known this in my own life, and in the lives of many others I have met. I think of a friend of mine – some of you will have heard me talk about him before. He’s a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, who used to beg for money on the streets to fund his addictions, but has now been clean and sober for well over a decade. The drugs and alcohol have done their damage though, leaving him with all sorts of physical and mental problems which he will never be free of, and life is a huge struggle for him. But he keeps on, day by day. Sometimes he phones me up and says, “Anne – I’ve just got a mustard seed of faith today, but it’s enough. God is with me, and I still haven’t had a drink…” He is giving help to others now too, giving back something in gratitude for the help he’s received. That’s resurrection. That’s what it looks like and feels like – not an idle tale, a trinket, an extraordinary story from long ago, but the essential food and drink for someone on a very hard journey. My friend has never, to my knowledge, worried about how exactly a dead man could come to life again, how he could appear in a locked room, or suddenly be walking along the road to Emmaus. All he knows is that somehow, from somewhere the strength he needs seems to appear when he needs it, and that is the miracle that matters to him.

I see the reality of resurrection often in the course of my work in people like him, people who have gone through horrific experiences, who have every reason to let hatred and suspicion swallow them up, yet somehow find the power to love instead, people who face what seem like insuperable odds in life, yet still have hope for the future, and a concern for others too. I see it in people like those women at the tomb, people whom the world might have written off, but who discover that they are precious in God’s eyes, with gifts to give and a message to share, despite what others might think. That’s resurrection – not an idle tale, but the knowledge of God’s presence and God’s love, light in the darkness, strength in the suffering, comfort in the loss, hope in the hard slog, where we are, here and now. The most important question for us this Easter day is not whether we believe that God raised Christ from death 2000 years ago, or, if we do, how he did it, but whether we are prepared to let God raise us from death to new life now.

Amen