Context

• Today is Easter Day.
• Today is also April Fools’ Day. 
• In France, a Gendarme is killed after offering himself to replace a hostage. 

 

Reflection

• We live in the light of the resurrection. So often this does not seem at all obvious in the news which is reported, or even in the events which influence our daily lives. We pray Sunday-by-Sunday for transformation in the life of the world. Today we need to preach that the slogan 'Christ is risen' means that the world is already being transformed. John Bell’s Easter hymn ‘Christ has risen while earth slumbers’ (set to a tune called ‘Transformation’) ends with the words:

Christ is risen. Christ is present.
Making us what he has been
Evidence of transformation
In which God is known and seen.

• Above all, Easter Day is a day to be positive. I heard of an Anglican priest who climbed slowly up into a high pulpit on Easter Day and then said just four words ‘Christ is risen! Alleluia!’ before climbing slowly down again; at one level, what else needs to be said today? On the other hand not all members of congregations will have marked Holy Week, so it may be necessary to remind people that there can be no Easter Day without Good Friday

 

• Today is also April Fools’ Day. God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, writes Paul, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1.25). In the musical Godspell, based on Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is portrayed as a clown!

 

• When the senior French Gendarme, Lt Col Arnaud Beltrame, confronted a terrorist in Trèbes, a small town near Carcassonne, last week and then offered himself to replace a hostage, was he acting wisely? When he died the following day, my first thought was that this man was an icon for us of the Passion. Tributes have been many. But did you notice one small detail? In the normal French way, he had already married under civil law; the church ceremony was to follow in June. In the event, it was the priest who would have officiated at the wedding who was called to Beltrame’s bedside – where his wife, Marielle, was keeping vigil – and who gave him the last rites. Giles Fraser also reflected on this case in BBC’s Thought for the Day on 27 March. 

 

• After resurrection, Jesus became recognisable when he said Mary’s name (John 20.16). Have you noticed how often in the resurrection stories the risen Christ is at first unrecognised? Examples include the couple going to Emmaus who recognise him only when he breaks bread and says the blessing (Luke 24.16; 31) and the meeting with the disciples on the seashore (John 21.4). His followers knew perfectly well that no one survived the cruel punishment of a cross – and therefore, quite reasonably, did not expect to see him again. Was it just that? Or was he somehow different, transformed? Easter is about transformation. It is about the death of those things in our lives which hinder the mission of God and a new start to a new life in which God’s mission for the world is at the centre of our lives. And this Easter message of transformation is for all people, not just those who come to church.

 

• In the film (and book) Chocolat, a wandering woman and her young daughter set up a chocolate shop in a traditional French village. The village is feudal. The Lord of the Manor/mayor rules the roost, counting the villagers into church on Sunday and vetting the sermons of the young priest. Against all the rules, the new chocolate shop opens in Lent. It becomes a place where a people can find friendship and support, where people are valued and encouraged; where a grandmother and her grandson are reunited despite parental opposition; and where the old woman is enabled to die gracefully. By contrast the church in the story is dour with its dull ritual and little joy. It is a place to which people go because they must, not because they wish to. The story ends appropriately on Easter Day and makes very clearly the point that a village which is enabled to embrace strangers is a happier village. Transformation in that village comes through inclusiveness. Is that a parable of the Easter message? When, as Christians, we keep ourselves to ourselves, we can easily become like the church in that French village – exclusive, rigid and self-righteous. The Easter message is that things can and should be different; that old ways are not always the best ways; and that what is past may need to be buried so that new life can thrive.

 

Prayer

A prayer which could be used after the Gospel reading, or after the sermon.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we pray that we too may pass this message on as Good News,
not just to those who already seek to follow the resurrected Christ,
but also to those who have forgotten, or who have never heard,
the news that he is risen, transformed, and lives to pray for us all,
now and always.
Amen.

In your prayers of intercession remember:

• Arnaud Beltrame and his friends and family – and others who have died or been injured in recent acts of terrorism, and their families;
• fellow Christians around the world as they celebrate Easter, especially those in places where they are not as free as we are to worship;
• those who, for whatever reason, struggle with faith or lack hope.

You may wish to note that 1 April 2018 is also the centenary of the Royal Air Force.

 

Questions

• How might your life be transformed this year by the Easter story?
• How might you have reacted on the first Easter morning
  • as Mary or one of the women who found the stone rolled away?
  • as one of the disciples to whom the women brought the news?
• What must it have felt like for Mary (and the other women who went to the tomb) when they told their unlikely tale to the (male) disciples?

 

All-age activity

• At the beginning and end of the service today greet each other with the traditional Easter greeting: ‘Christ is risen’ – to which the traditional response is: ‘He is risen indeed’.
• Mary returned to disciples. Re-enact her experience (and perhaps that of the other women) as they returned to the disciples. As a group, discuss what it felt like to tell such an unlikely tale.

 

Young people

• According to the Gospels, it was women who were the first to meet the risen Christ – not the eleven (male) disciples! Discuss how it might have been had you been one of those women telling your unlikely tale to sceptical adults.

 

Dudley Coates is a Local Preacher in the Yeovil and Blackmore Vale Methodist Circuit and a former Vice President of the Methodist Conference.

 

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