Sunday 16th April 2006Easter Day
Fr David Cherry
The Glory that is ours. Jeremiah 31.1-6; Colossians 3.1-4; John 20.1-18
“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God”
Mary’s mis-recognition is in fact a different kind of recognition
Last night Fr Nick told us the joke about two priests in disguise on
holiday, sunning themselves on their cossies on a beach.
They’re recognised as priests by a beautiful blonde in a bikini
who says ‘hello fathers’. Rather disconcerted about
being recognised, the second day they ask how she knows they’re
priests; and the gorgeous creature replies: But fathers, it’s me,
Sr Monica!
One of the other ways in which clergy take time-off is shopping.
If you go to Rome at any time of the year you will find High Church
Anglican clergy doing what is known as tat-shopping. Tat-shopping
is shopping for church tat: vestments and robes and all the
accoutrement of catholic worship; a thurible from Gaudenzi; a new set
if high mass vestments from Gamarelli; being measured up for a new
cassock at Barbiconi and wondering how much they dare spend of the
parish budget. You can tell I am no stranger to the tat quarter
of the Eternal City. I’m not sure that this is always
‘seeking those things which are above’ as St Paul bids us
in the epistle.
The cultural tradition of the Christian faith is full of paraphernalia
and excess to impress upon you and me and to express the glory of God;
‘what a carry-on’ you might think. But I don’t
believe there is anything too excessive in celebrating our living faith
in the dead and risen Christ. While we mustn’t take
ourselves too seriously, we must not be puritanical or cynical either.
All this outward excess is to ‘im-press’ on you and
me the glory of the Risen Christ; and it points to an interior reality:
‘your life is hid with Christ in God’. Look, see,
allow it to come home to you.
In the gospel reading, St John takes us back to a garden – the
garden of Eden - where the terrible effects of sin, death, fear, envy,
competition, rivalry triumphed. And here in another garden this
Gardner is restoring and healing and bringing back to life, bringing
Creation to completion. Jesus is the second Adam, the Adam who has come
to restore to us what was lost by the first.
Mary’s mis-recognition is in fact a different kind of recognition
– she is in fact recognising what God is like: a Gardner,
bringing what was lost back to life. God is continuing his work
of Creation. In fact, she is recognising the true Christ who has
conquered death and fear and envy, the terrible effects of sin on our
world. She is recognising the hidden truth of the Person of
Christ. She is coming to believe in Jesus and coming to believe
that what we do is not all there is. For what is being
offered her is not a new formula for life or belief system which you
must somehow get right, by checks and balances. What she is
beginning to find happening to her is that she is in a significant
relationship. She is beginning to believe more. She is
believing in him as naturally as children believe in their
parents’ love for them; as naturally as bride and groom believe
in each others’ love for them.
This IS the glory: coming to believe in God’s love for you.
This glory is relational, nothing less than a share in God’s life
which is offered to you and to me. It is a life that is not
determined by how much you know or how successful you might be; it is
not limited by my foolishness, my sinful arrogance nor by my hurt and
disappointment.
No longer will Mary be able to say ‘only me’ with
resignation; or apologetically, ‘I’m only
human’. Or, indeed, ‘I’m only a
woman’. To live like that is to be spiritually dead,
self-denying, mean to oneself, stingy. Mary is beginning to find
that her life is less governed by fear more by hope; less by having to
scrape her dignity together, more by beginning to feel the dignity with
which God holds her; less governed by regret, more being set free in
forgiving love…She is beginning to find like St Paul that in
fact that the significance of her ‘life is hid in God’-
more meaningful, more significant, a relational glory as one loved by
God and invited to share more in his own life.
This is what the invitation to Holy Communion is to : Blessed are
those who are called to his supper, the priest says– AND we are
all called, all offered communion with God, a relationship which
transcends death and fear of death. We acknowledge that none of
us is worthy to receive him. We are with Mary in the Garden. And
in doing so we are recognising that this glory is GIFT – it is
excessive, it is not earned.
The paraphernalia of worship, the excess of money spent on candles and
flowers; the wine after mass; our celebrations tell us something; the
sacred ministers standing in cloth of gold, literally feeling the
weight of God’s glory and showing it off….is a kind of
‘in-your-face’: look and see the glory that God is
offering you. Look, feel within you how communion with God can
set you free from fear and cynicism by believing in him. Let it
take hold of you, capture your heart. Let it take you over.
Rejoice in it and respond with excessive thanksgiving.
The life of God we are invited to share in communion with God is not
some non-human, super-spiritual pie in the sky thing, but lived out in
a flesh and blood community: in relationship in the community of the
Church. It is among others that we discover what God is
like. May God keep us all faithful to the promises we renew this
morning to God and to one another.
Into that life of the church we rejoice to initiate Timothy and Ella
this morning. We, with Mary in the Garden, welcome them to
journey with us this Eastertide, as we come to believe more and more IN
Jesus. We all renew our baptismal promises which brought us into
this community where we discover ever more deeply – over time
– the depths of our lives ‘hid with Christ in
God.’ Amen