Dave spoke from John 20 this morning, looking at how Jesus met with Mary after the Resurrection. You might expect the resurrection accounts to be dazzling and marvellous, given the amazing content of the news that Christ has risen, but as with so many things in the Christian life, God does not always work in the ways we would expect. Instead of bolts of lightning and triumph, we find confused disciples not really knowing what to believe, even after they have been told that Christ is alive. The diversity of the witness accounts in the Gospels should not cause us to doubt the veracity of these accounts, but simply reflects the different perspectives of the people involved.

Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had earlier cast seven demons, had been present at the crucifixion and was desperate to hold on to her Saviour, even if that simply meant helping to anoint His dead body. She, along with the other women, displayed an ability to hold on, even in the midst of grief and suffering. The thought that she could no longer help Jesus was devastating to her, hence her tears. She did not recognise Jesus when she met Him, mistaking Him for the gardener; she could not cope with this amazing news that He was alive again. It was only when He spoke her name that she recognised Him.

Whilst we know that Jesus appeared to His disciples in groups and to more than 500 people on one occasion, the fact remains that the majority of the accounts of the Resurrection are personal: how Jesus appeared to individuals, restoring and reassuring them (as He did with Peter and Thomas and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, for example.) The strugglers and the stragglers were just as important to Jesus as the crowds. The Resurrection – the most earth-shattering event in history – was nonetheless immensely personal. What matters to us today as much as our actual belief in the Resurrection of Christ is that we create a climate in which people can meet Christ for themselves. We need that real and living encounter with a real and living Christ if we are to be transformed as the early disciples were, from fearful, grieving followers to bold apostles, confident and sure in their proclamation of Christ.

As we reach Easter Sunday, our hearts are filled with awe and gladness that we can indeed proclaim that Christ is risen. I often think of what it was like to reach that first day of the week without the benefit of hindsight, however: to view Easter as it must have seemed to the first disciples without the knowledge that appearances do not necessarily tell the whole story, without the knowledge that God is working all things together for good.

Anyone who has lived through any kind of emotional turmoil knows how draining and debilitating it is to see-saw from hope to despair through every range of emotion in between. The disciples had entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the exhilarating high of acclamation. (Matt 21:1-11) The Gospels tell us so much of this last week of the life of Christ: the teachings, the miracles, the plots. Then came the talk of betrayal and sorrow, the Last Supper, feet being washed, teachings of the last days. We struggle to take in all this teaching even now, so it must have been exhausting for the disciples: no wonder they fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Matt 26:36-46)

The dread and fear they felt at the arrest of Jesus, the sickening realisation that one of them had betrayed Jesus, the hurt and terror that this must have engendered in them cannot simply be ignored by us, for we so often are in that place of dread, fear, hurt and pain. Their differing reactions – blustering violence (Matt 26:51), a desperate need to know what was going on (why else did Peter and John follow into the courtyards?), quiet solidarity in watching the Crucifixion – remind us of how we react to the unknown.

Then there came the quiet obedience of waiting: ‘The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.’ (Luke 23:55-56) How hard it is to wait, to feel impotent, to be able to do nothing at all to change a situation. How long that Sabbath must have seemed. As they remembered God’s deliverance of His people from Egypt, did they have any inkling of the greater deliverance taking place in the world?

Then we have the next stage of the story. ‘When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.’ (Mk 16:1) They knew their duty. They were determined to be faithful to the end. They were still trying to work things out: ‘they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”‘ (Mk 16:3)

So often, that is where we are. Hurt, confused, afraid, we ask questions to which there are no answers. We try to work things out as best we can; we try to answer our prayers ourselves at times, all too often unaware that God is working things out in ways we cannot ever even imagine. When the women arrived at the tomb, the stone had already been rolled away. Their immediate problem had been solved. They had done nothing to solve this, despite their questions and anxiety. Greater things awaited them: the revelation that death was not the end of the story, that God had planned a solution beyond their wildest dreams.

Easter Sunday reminds us very firmly that God is in control, sovereign over all, ruling and reigning in majesty, even though He chooses to work in hidden, invisible ways that to us remain mysterious and unfathomable. We hold on to hope in the midst of darkness; we remind ourselves that the God who delivered Israel from Egypt and raised Christ from the dead is our God: ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’ (Rom 8:31)

We finished the Easter March of Hope at the Pentecostal church’s coffee morning! Thanks were given to all who had helped, especially the stewards, drummer and standard bearer:

Inside, we enjoyed drinks and cakes:

Thanks to all who helped with the coffee morning and who attended the march. It is another example of churches working together and it was good to proclaim to local residents out and about doing their Saturday shopping that Jesus is alive and Jesus is Lord! What better way to prepare for Easter Sunday?!

This morning, members of various churches in Goldthorpe (including the Salvation Army, the local Anglican church, the Roman Catholic church and ours) joined together for an Easter March of hope and witness.

GPCC members setting off from Market Street

Meeting with other church members on Lockwood Road, near the Roman Catholic Church:

Getting ready to set off!

Marching and singing!

Down past Asda:

Turning right:

We then went up Straight Lane back onto the main road:

We turned back onto Market Street:

… and finished at GPCC car park!:

Don’t forget the Easter March of Hope around Goldthorpe which will start at 10 a.m. today (Easter Saturday) at the Catholic church on Lockwood Road. If you’re not sure where that is, we will be meeting at GPCC for 9. 45 a.m., so you can join us there. We will march around Goldthorpe, proclaiming that Jesus is Lord, returning to our church by about 11 a.m. for drinks at the coffee morning.

Graham Kendrick’s song ‘Meekness and Majesty‘ looks at the paradoxical nature of Christ, who ‘being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!’ (Phil 2:6-8).

Easter is always the time when the paradox of the divinity and humanity of Christ seems to be especially visible. The King of all Creation kneeling to wash the disciples’ feet, (John 13:1-17) The Creator of the universe nailed to a wooden cross. (Col 1:16-17, Col 2:13-15) The One who could call on His Father and receive help from more than twelve legions of angels willingly submitting to arrest. (Matt 26:52-54) Our minds simply cannot comprehend the level of submission and sacrifice we see.

Scripture tells us that on the day Christ was crucified ‘From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.’ (Matt 27:45) No day seems darker in human history. All hope seemed to be lost. C.S. Lewis re-tells the story in his allegory ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’ where chapter 14 is entitled ‘The Triumph of the Witch’ and captures the misery and darkness of the tale well. We do well to pause at this point and grasp the depth of sorrow and the ache of Calvary.

Nonetheless, Good Friday is not the end of the story. Eugene Peterson reminds us “Evil is not inexhaustible. It is not infinite. It is not worthy of a lifetime of attention.” (Eugene Peterson, ‘Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work’, P 124) Even in darkness, light dawns.(Ps 112:4) Rend Collective sing ‘The dark is just a canvas for Your grace and brightness.’ (‘Joy’) In the midst of the bleakness of Easter, in the midst of the sorrow and heartache and bewilderment and confusion that will find their way into all of our lives at some point, there is brightness, hope, light. Christ’s resurrection from the dead, His triumph over death, His ultimate victory remind us that evil is not inexhaustible or infinite. Our God is greater.