Easter Blessings.

That in the midst of brokenness, healing stirs.

That in the midst of darkness, a light shines.

That in the midst of death, life is breaking forth.

That when all seems gone, hope springs eternal. (Rex A E Hunt)

Friends: there is resurrection.

Friends: there is hope.

Friends: even though today is Happy, we still feel it.

Mary at the tomb, encountering the risen Jesus as a gardener… she still feels it.  Jesus, dead, buried, now gone… she feels it.

That in the midst of brokenness, healing stirs.

That in the midst of darkness, a light shines.

That in the midst of death, life is breaking forth.

That when all seems gone, hope springs eternal. (Rex A E Hunt)

To those in this Bible story today, and those in the New Testament stories of Jesus’ resurrection and what we know of the Early Church, this Easter event mattered, because Jesus mattered.

As theologian Stephen J Patterson said in his book “Killing Jesus: The Future of the Christian Tradition” .… “His death mattered to them because his life had mattered to them.  They spoke of his death in ways that affirmed his life, and reaffirmed their own commitment to the values and vision stamped into his life by his words and deeds.  To the followers and friends of Jesus, his death was important in its particularity – as the fate of him who said and did certain things, who stood for something so important to him that he was willing to give his life for it.” (Patterson 2007:77)

How then, does this story matter to you?

How then does this Jesus meet you in the garden this morning?

How then do we live as a community in our time and space?

There may be Easter Blessings everywhere and we are missing them.

The Resurrection of Jesus, in the stories we have, show us communities in their unknowing this morning.  The disciples return home after proving for themselves that Mary’s words of witness are true – the tomb is empty: but they are yet to comprehend what has happened or its meaning.  The revelation of emptiness does not yet accord with the vision they had heard from Jesus of the Realm of God.  They had believed that “in Jesus’ words were God’s words.” (Patterson 2004:127), but for now, the emptiness was not clear and the meanings were not understood.

Whatever we are to make of these stories of Resurrection in 2026, one thing unique to Christianity, remains.   Michael Hardin, takes a non-religious “Anthropological Reading” of the story and notes on the similarity to dying-and-rising myths in other religions.

He says “Yet, nowhere to be found in any myth is a dying with forgiveness and nowhere in any myth is the rising the vindication of a life of forgiveness and non-retaliation. Yes, there are similarities to Jesus’ dying and rising with other myths, but this is because Jesus’ life, death and resurrection radically alters, deconstructs and restructures our myth making. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are the end of human culture founded upon violence and the opening of the Way of the Kingdom of God, the way of life and light, joy and peace, reconciliation and love.”

And those early communities, as we reflected on Good Friday, were communities breaking boundaries of Religion, Gender and Sex, Social and Economic Status and Age.  Jesus’ vision of a New Kingdom is something no executioner or cross could kill.  Jesus was dead.  But he was not dead to them in the ancient story.  His Spirit was still coursing through their veins. His Presence amongst them.

To be the custodians of this story is more than a responsibility.  We are those who embody this ‘resurrection presence’  our in our very living: in our interactions with one another and the world.  We are the ones with Christ Jesus coursing through our veins.

That in the midst of brokenness, healing stirs.

That in the midst of darkness, a light shines.

That in the midst of death, life is breaking forth.

That when all seems gone, hope springs eternal.

This is the Good News of Jesus Christ: such that we can say

He is Risen: He is Risen indeed.