Luke 24: 36-53
My hope is that as you read this I will be in the Yorkshire Dales with my extended family, sharing a holiday. It will be good to all be together again, it is five years now since Karen and I have been part of this holiday, mainly because of the pandemic and I am really looking forward to the experience. The last time we travelled to Conistone in Wharfedale to share the family holiday was Easter 2018, my problem is that I am normally working on Easter Sunday, and five years ago, I took the morning service and then we set off on our journey north. I will always remember that Easter Sunday, because we saw dozens of crosses in front of Churches, decorated with fresh spring flowers as a public witness to the celebration of the day that marks the resurrection of Christ. I was tired that day, Lent and Easter is always a busy time in my life and there was a feeling of relief as I drove away from work, Church, and all the pressures of life, to face a week of relaxation, refreshment, good company and a re-charging of the batteries, and those crosses gave me a feeling of hope.
There may well be people reading this today who struggle with the whole idea of the resurrection story. That is fine, it takes a huge leap of faith to believe that Jesus, who once was dead was alive again. I have conducted more funerals in the last six months, than I have at any time in my ministry and never once have I expected to see the deceased come back to life, so we are perhaps right to say that the resurrection story is unbelievable. That is not to say, that I don’t believe it, I think that the whole birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is in my opinion the greatest story ever told.
The Bible reading reminds us that the disciples were tired, confused, left bewildered and lost after the events of Holy Week and Good Friday in particular. Easter Saturday must have felt like the worst day of their lives, they had given up everything and followed Jesus for three years of their lives, learning from him, witnessing amazing things, they must have felt like the chosen ones and even had celebrity status as they entered Jerusalem just six days earlier. Now it was all gone, the one they had pinned their hopes on was now broken and dead, what were they to do now? For many years, I was worn out by the time Easter came, I have always found the shorter, colder days of winter a challenge and the run from Christmas to Easter a long, hard slog, I have no problem with the historical accuracy of the Easter story, I am quite happy to accept the Bible’s account of what happened, chiefly because this little group of broken, lost, scared men, turned around in the days following Easter and became alive in the work of God.
Those floral tributes outside Churches on Sunday 1st April 2018 were signs of hope for me, I had conducted eleven services and a school assembly in just eight days, and had already got three services under my belt of that Easter morning, so felt pretty broken as I set out on my five hours drive north and those decorated crosses along the way lifted my spirits, energised me and I somehow shared the hope that maybe the first disciples felt when they met with the risen Christ.