Sermons - April 2025

SUNDAY 20^th APRIL 2025 11.00 a.m.
HOLY COMMUNION, ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
(EASTER SUNDAY)

Prayer: Living God, may we rejoice in the hope of this day,
be immersed in the wonder of its purpose,
give ourselves to the joy of its meaning,
and bind ourselves to the love it reveals. Amen (Tom Gordon, Easter Day 2025)

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb
and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran…” John 20:1

Perhaps when I know you better, or have spent more time with a therapist,
I will tell you, how two years ago, I didn’t win the Dads’ race,
in the June of my daughter’s final, primary-school sports day.
It would require speaking of caution unwisely discarded,
some treacherously, uneven ground,
a cartoon-esque, headlong fall, severely skinned knees,
a last place finish and enduring humiliation.
As indicated: “Too soon.”

Such hauntings resurfaced this week, with a short piece of film on the BBC News website.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is a three-time Olympic champion,
the third fastest woman in history.
She also just competed in her young son’s school sports day, mums’ race, 100metre dash.
She demolished the competition.
Seemingly launched from the start line by a rocket,
she was so far ahead by race conclusion
that the phone camera couldn’t contain winner and followers in the same shot.
Post-race, the Olympian explained: “They haven’t banned me yet, so I’m at the line.”

Running maintains a lane in the Scriptures:
“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31

Paul the Apostle advised the Hebrews:
“… let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,
who for the sake of the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, disregarding its shame,
and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Running - a metaphor for the way/life of faith – particularly the call to perseverance.
But then there is just running –
running as action, or reaction, to the impulse of the moment.
The Father of the Prodigal Son,
running to embrace the wayward child, presumed dead.
Or, (according to the Gospel of John), the running of the first Easter – the resurrection relay.
Mary running through Jerusalem’s dark, pre-dawn alleyways.
Then retracing those steps, back to the garden,
the footrace between the Beloved Disciple and Peter.
What prompts this pre-dawn dash?

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
A grieving woman returns to the only place left to go –
the place where they had wrapped and laid his shattered body
at the end of that hideous day.
She remembered the oppressive heat of the morning,
an intolerable, indifferent sun,
until the clouds gathered like ugly bruises,
a slow suffocation of agony and anger.
In those stretched out hours the light fled,
as if the world itself screamed its horror at those shameful gallows.

She neared the tomb; panic, distress. The stone aside. Dark emptiness.
One final indignity? The double grief of the disappeared?
Robbers? The Romans? The priests?
Could they never leave her Jesus alone, even in death?
Easter starts in distress and unknowns.

Then the rush to let the disciples know.
Peter and the Beloved Disciple racing each other to confirm Mary’s tale;
the former, arriving at the tomb first, but pausing at the entrance;
Peter, arriving second, ploughing straight in – his gospel character, entirely.
Incredulity in the doorway.
Grave clothes. Discarded, set apart.
What did it mean?
For the two men, the tomb was evidence but not a place for answers.
They leave, unwilling or unable, to comfort Mary.

 So, it is Mary, alone, who is first;
first, not only to discover the absence,
but first also, to be changed by its mysteries.
It is the grieving, apparently abandoned Mary,
who encounters the angels, shimmering like candles on a tablecloth of bandages.

Why are you weeping?
They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.
In the circumstances, a lifeless body would at least be some consolation.
Then, turning, looking outward from the tomb,
Mary encounters the gardener.
Do you know where they have taken him?

The unknown one speaks her name – Mary –
a greeting, an awakening, an invitation – all in one.
Mary - all is changed, all astonishingly new.
Rabbouni! she responds, Teacher! Recognition, return, renewal.

Three runners on resurrection race day.
And striking - three differing experiences.
Mary Magdalene sees Jesus first
because she chooses to remain, even in the darkness, bereft and bewildered.
She gives grief its due.
Refuses to abandon what is real, even when that seems unbearable.
Sorrow is her legitimate and faithful pathway to Easter.

In contrast, Peter runs headlong into the tomb - and runs back out again.
He cannot bear the rawness of the moment. 
Perhaps too proud, exhausted, or ashamed to share Mary’s grief.
For him Easter will take time, before it catches him up.
Meanwhile, the Beloved Disciple believes without understanding.
Believes what? That the body has been stolen? That Jesus is alive?
That God has vanquished death?
We are not told. Only “he sees and believes”;
trusts the evidence of his own experience.
Holds onto what he can in that strange, confusing moment,
leaves the door open for faith to deepen further.

Three runners on resurrection race day –
three encounters with Christ – each different.
Reminder, that we come to the empty tomb and Easter,
as ourselves, not identikits -
with different expectations and experiences;
in running parlance, differing PB’s –
our own personal bests, our own slowest times.

Mary, Peter and the Beloved Disciple remind us,
if we are to encounter the risen Christ,
it will be only, can be only,
in the circumstances of our own lives –
complicated, compromised, incomplete, imperfect,
miraculous or mysterious,
as they may well be or feel.

We might wish that things were different, or easier;
but if those Easter tomb runners pass a baton to us –
it is that the absence and presence, they first stumbled upon,
is the same absence and presence
that moves and motivates, sustains and inspires our lives today.

And whether Olympian, or also-ran: we too can relay the astonishing wonder of Easter:
Fighting the good fight, finishing the race, keeping the faith. II Timothy 4:7
“Not banned yet - so each and all of us - at the line.”