ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Sermon preached by Fr. Julian Browning at High Mass on the Third Sunday of Easter, 18 April 2010.
Readings: Acts 9.1-6; Revelation 5.11-14; John 21.1-19.
Easter 3 At Easter our lives are transformed. You yourselves were in a transformation scene when you sang that hymn before the Gospel, Come let us join our cheerful songs with Angels round the throne. Words by Isaac Watts, cribbed shamelessly from our second lesson from Revelation. You did realise you were singing the second lesson, didn't you? As you sang that hymn you became that great crowd of angels, with every creature in heaven and on earth, in the spectacular finale to St John's vision in Revelation of the court of heaven. There in song was one of Easter's transformations, a power shift from the courts of earth to the court of heaven. We're in the right place for once. And what were we belting out, in the crescendo of that extravaganza? Worthy the Lamb that died, they cry, to be exalted thus.
That is extraordinary. Christianity is the only religion to call God a lamb. What belongs to God belongs to the Lamb. Seems a bit awkward as an image, but only because we've missed the obvious meaning, which is that the way to the risen life is vulnerability, weakness, defencelessness. We miss this, because we are caught in a cultural trap of competition and achievement, we have learnt to hide weaknesses, to despise them. The transforming news of Easter is that the only kind of power the Gospel can give us is our vulnerability. Truth reaches us when we admit our weakness, and give up the ego trip. So the transformation that takes place at Easter is an irreversible transformation of our ideas about who God is and who we are. God is not a bitter old fusspot deploring our weak moments. God is on our side. Whatever we've done, whoever we are, God shows us the way to His Easter life, the risen life, the Christ life. The way to the risen life is through discovering how vulnerable we are, giving up the need to be successful, the need to be religious and right all the time, and the need to have power and have everything under control. That's all going to go. What else can the crucified figure behind me possibly mean? There is the Lamb, a human image based on the passover lamb, there is weakness, vulnerability, innocence, a man disarmed. That is what we thought we'd never see, God's heart softened towards us, his arms spread wide. Here is the way to the risen life. It's so clear. We see the two things which we know transform us in our daily lives: love and suffering. We know they work; they do change us. Love changes our day. In life, suffering and failure and fiascoes are great teachers, they move us on, not always where we want to go, because we have to give up control. That was part of Paul's blinding flash of inspiration. When I am weak, then am I strong. That is the path of transformation.
The news of Easter Day, the news of the empty tomb and the Resurrection of Christ, is that this path of transformation is open to all of us, the chance to live the risen life, which is life without death. Death-dealing things, the fear of losing, the fear of dying without having lived, the fear of failure, the shadows of all that is shameful, dark and damaged, can be transformed, can be changed now into a life of hope and everlasting joy, because God has shown us the way to receive and to share His life among ourselves. The first step to sharing this risen life is to become a disciple. Today's Gospel reading is the last chapter of St John's Gospel. It's a weird chapter, sometimes seen as an appendix to the Gospel, but never mind, there is Jesus is a strange post-Resurrection state, talking to his disciples after a fishing trip. I think this is about us and how our weakness is recognised, accepted and transformed into the risen life. In this chapter Peter, who had betrayed his Lord and might therefore be in disgrace, is re-instated and given his life back as the one who will now feed the Lord's sheep, his lambs. Three times the same question, Simon son of John do you love me? What further proof do we need of the way forward for us, the path of transformation? It is to be heart work, not head work, the way of love and of that suffering (or giving up of control) which follows a self-giving in love. At the end of the conversation the risen Jesus says, Follow me. Follow me, through your love and suffering, to the risen life.
When we sang that joyful hymn with Isaac Watts, he and the author of Revelation had us all in the chorus line joining with the whole of creation round the throne. Quite a crowd; being a Christian isn't a lonely journey for one. We are a risen people, God's creation restored. What's changed? I'll give you an example. When we first started on our religious and moral life as young people, we were told the benefits of self-control. Self-control would keep us out of trouble. It didn't work, did it? God's not interested in our self-control, good though it is. Pontius Pilate showed great self-control. What God recognises is self-surrender: a surrender of all that we are to the uncontrollable Spirit of God, a surrender to all that is good and holy and lifegiving. That's not self-control, that's self giving up control. That's what Jesus did, and God raised him to a new life, a life without death, in which everyone is included. Our Easter joy is that this new life, the risen life in the court of heaven, a life uncontrolled by death, is ours now, at this moment, in the present, and all that we thought separated us from God, all that used to frighten us away, has brought us straight into his presence, in Easter joy, to bless the sacred name of him that sits upon the throne, and to adore the Lamb. And if you did miss the connection between hymn and Revelation first time round, just wait to the final hymn today and you'll sing Charles Wesley's version of the same Easter triumph.