Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on Easter Day 2025

Two days ago, we knew where to look. On Good Friday, we looked to the cross. A large wooden cross stood just there on the floor. No missing the cross. Christians look to the cross. ‘May I never boast of anything’ said Paul ‘except the cross’. Five hundred years, writing from a little monastery in the Netherlands, Thomas a Kempis had the cross front and centre,

in the cross is everything... There is no other way to life… than the way of the holy cross... Go where you will, seek what you will, you will not find a higher way… than the way of the holy cross. 

On Good Friday we know where to look. What is it like to be human? What does it mean to be God? It is like this—it is revealed on the cross. The faith of anxious priests, the politics of a cruel government and the passion of a crowd conspired, and the love and life of God bled out upon the cross. Here is our world, made and manufactured out of our anger, fashioned from our fear. This is the world as it is, decisions we make, the suffering we cannot escape, the death we cannot evade. And here, on the cross, is the life that Christ showed us that life that we so passionately refused to live. Christ showed us, offered us the life and love of God and we would not have it, could not bear it. As Charles Causley put it,

I am the great sun, but you do not see me,
I am your husband, but you turn away…
I am the truth, but you will not believe me,
I am the city where you will not stay.

On Good Friday we know where to look. We look to the cross and we see ourselves - our character - and we see love—God’s love. On Good Friday we act in character and so does God. And, by the end of Good Friday, it is only that love that is left. The cross comes down, the crowd drifts away, the body is sealed in a tomb, only the love with which Christ loved us and the love with which his followers loved him remains. Love in loss, love in absence, that is how that day ends.

It is that same love that brings Mary Magdalene into the garden on Easter morning - love in absence. Remember, she expected to stand staring at stone. But that is not what she sees, the stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty. Yet still she sees only absence—an empty tomb before her. She rushes off to tell Peter and John. And that is the first news of Easter, that the tomb is empty. It is absence she must describe. It begins with absence and with emptiness. He died, he was dead. That is part of what we say on Easter day.

So, we know where to look on Good Friday, but where do we look at Easter? Well, taking stock of absence is part of it. It begins in absence. The painters of resurrection knew that. Some of them painted pictures of Christ stepping out of the tomb. They gave him a banner and had him ‘step up’, centre stage, victorious. It’s not described in any gospel. Look closely at the pictures and you will see the guards are asleep. It’s a picture of the thing precisely not seen. And, in another tradition the picture is of Christ stepping delicately away from Mary Magdalene, out of reach, apart… untouchable. Christ evading or eye and our reach.

Where should we look? Not at the moment of resurrection for that was never seen, nor at a Christ we can grasp and hold—he steps so gently aside. This morning’s gospel brings us to the very edge of the map, to the point where the colouring-in has ended, where the footpath peters out. Here we are at the edge of understanding. Artists hint at that. We see a slightly less than famous English painter called Leslie Worth gave us a water colour, a garden, an English garden perhaps, in early morning light. There’s a lawn before us, trees and buildings ahead. The sun is low and in our eyes; there is a little early mist; it is hard to see, it is deep shadows and dazzling light. And yet, and yet on the far side of the lawn there might be a figure, no it is two figures, one standing, one kneeling. Could that be Christ, is it perhaps Mary Magdalene? I could not say, so hard to be sure. Is that a resurrection? Perhaps it is.

IIs that what we look for this morning? A truth just glimpsed, the scene in the corner of the eye, the hint, the shadow of a thing? Is that the difference between Good Friday and Easter Day, the difference between wood, bone, and nail on the one hand and the light and shadow on the other? 

No, the diffidence of artists is impressive, but it is less than Easter is. This day is not a celebration of a mystery merely glimpsed. We may begin in absence and in emptiness, but we do not finish there. Our faith does not turn on real presence on Good Friday and real absence at Easter. We do not pin our faith on hints and allegations. If Good Friday is death and love. Easter is love and life. Easter is presence. He rose. He was there. In the garden that morning Mary Magdalene met the risen Christ. We must not miss the great triumphant cry at the close of the gospel—‘I have seen the Lord’. And that is what we too must see.

John V Taylor, Bishop of Winchester used to tell a story about a young woman dying of cancer in St Christopher’s Hospice. She asked her nurse if she believed in resurrection.

That there’s a God: that you don’t just snuff out’.
‘Yes, I really believe that’s true’
A long silence, and then
‘Do you think it’s enough if one just hopes it’s true?’
‘I’m sure it’s enough’

It’s a truly moving story and it was reassurance for that young woman. Even so, Easter is more than this, more than fragile hope. Our difficulty lies only in knowing what ‘more’ looks like. We still do not know where to look and what to name. The cross is simple, brutally simple, it is the thing seen and the thing known. Easter is literally so hard to grasp, Mary is indeed told that she must let go. We are in danger of being left amazed, speechless, and in wonder.

Remember the disciples who were not speechless and they did not wonder. Our gospel reading is full of their rushing feet, their urgency. They and the gospel know what they saw. St John takes great pains to tells us how they looked, gazed, observed, and stared. 

Make no mistake, this day changes everything. Good Friday left us with love and absence, love was all that was left. Today Love wins and love returns. It is here. Today love is present. Today shows us the victory of God over all that rose up and killed the Christ. Just as surely as Good Friday, this day shows us the love of God and it is love made present, love present, love victorious. So, where do we look? We look to ourselves. God’s love lives for us, so look to yourself. Good Friday shows us the consequences of our fear. Easter sho6wes us the outcome of God’s love. We saw a death, now it is human life we see - a humanity scarred yet risen, betrayed yet loving, beaten but made glorious, dead yet alive. It is ourselves we must see dragged from the grave and made new. This Easter story is ours now, for the life Christ lived is given and glorious and yours and mine. New life not fragile hope, my life, your life. Christ is Risen and the risen life is yours, ours, mine. If we want to see Easter we must look to ourselves. And, if we can do that, others might see Easter too.