Year: 2016

This is taken from N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope (2008)

“…Many churches now hold Easter vigils, as the Orthodox church has always done, but in many cases they are… too tame by half. Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power… we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows. Every step back from that is a step toward an ethereal or esoteric Easter experience, and the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal nor esoteric. It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way.

But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

…Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?

…we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins…

…if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again—well, of course. Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative…. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.”

The Saturday between Good Friday & Easter Sunday gets lost. We’re not sure what to do with it. In the biblical story, nothing happens. Jesus is dead. He’s in the tomb. The disciples are in hiding. Nothing is happening.

They authorities tried to keep Jesus safely dead then, and they try it still today.

Again and again, when the news media want to talk about God, they ignore Jesus. We hear so-called experts proclaiming that science has disproved God — without realizing that the ‘god’ you could squeeze out of the picture by more and more scientific discoveries is not the God whom we worship. Our world is still full of the modern equivalents of high priests going to the governor to have a guard placed on the tomb — the sceptics appealing for help to the powerful. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

N.T. Wright says:

“Sometimes, though, we Christians need to observe a Holy Saturday moment. On Holy Saturday, there is nothing you can do except wait. The Christian faith suffers, apparently, great defeats. There are scandals and divisions, and the world looks on and loves it, like the crowds at the foot of the cross.”

But God will do what God will do, in God’s own time. The world can plot and plan, but all of that will count for nothing when the victory already won on the cross turns into the new sort of victory on the third day.

In many places in the western world today, the church is almost apologetic, afraid of being sneered at. It looks as though the chief priests and the Pharisees of our culture, the political leaders, have won.

Give them their day to imagine that. It’s happened before and it will happen again. The Romans tried to stamp out the Christian faith multiple times. Turmoil in the 16th & 17th centuries gave rise to scepticism about the Christian faith. ISIS and other persecutors run rampant in our day. We don’t know what will happen next. We don’t know what the sceptics, the so-called “new Atheists of our day”, the persecutors of this generation will do next.

Part of what are called to, is to keep watching and waiting on Holy Saturday, in faith and hope, grieving over the ruin of the world that sent Jesus to his death, trusting in the promises of God that new life will come in his way and his time.

On that first Good Friday – Easter Resurrection weekend there were somethings done that took courage, in the midst of the hard and sad events. It took courage for Joseph of Arimathea to go to Pontius Pilate and ask for Jesus’ body. Peter and the others run away to hide because they were afraid of being thought accomplices of Jesus. Joseph steppped up. He provided a new tomb and a clean linen cloth. It all had to be done quickly, the sabbath was approaching.

Sometimes, as we work for and with Jesus, it may feel a bit like that. We aren’t sure why we are in this place. Why things aren’t going as we wanted or planned. Why energy seems to have been drained out of it all. That’s a Holy Saturday moment. Do what has to be done, and wait for God to act in his own way and his own time.

Maundy Thursday, is a day that reminds us of some key things that Jesus not only said, but modeled and commanded. Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum, translated as “commandment.” This is taken from Jesus’ words in John 13:34-35

“So now I am giving you a new commandment:
Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.
Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.“

Rooted in this command is the idea of presence: a word that speaks of being present, being visible, being active.

When we meet together on this thursday (or indeed any time) we can experience God’s presence as we share humour, as we offer hospitality, as we are gracious with each other, desiring the best for each other.

Being present with others, in safe spaces, being safe people, we create space for God’s Spirit to minister truth, joy, healing, forgiveness, and power and strength for living.

On that night when Jesus shared what we call The Last Supper, God’s Presence was actually with the disciples as they communed, unaware of what was about to take place. Some difficult things were said (John 13:21-30; 36-38; 15:18). The disciples wrestled with what Jesus said. In many ways they were still clueless. But a genuine love was shared at that table. They broke bread. They drank wine. They prayed. God’s Presence was real as Jesus prayed his unifying prayer of John 17. I imagine there was a crescendo of emotion. Realness with vulnerability.

So on Maundy Thursday we eat a meal together, we laugh together, we enjoy each other’s presence, we in some way, re-enact the community of the Last Supper.

Christianity is empty when void of community.

Christianity is not a solo activity. We were created and are re-created in Christ to be in relationship, to be in community. Community adds to us the truth of life, of hope, of support, and of healing. In community we are able to grow as God intended from the beginning.

As we meet on this Maundy Thursday together, we reflect on the surprise of Easter that opens our hearts to the goodness and greatness of God.