Easter Sunday
It’s alarming at times how sin clings so closely to us, old memories and old enmities suddenly surfacing as if from nowhere – confessed and thought of as forgotten but a part of our fabric that, one press of a button, and there they are again in all their ugliness and passion. And this said because we might think of the resurrection as undergone by Christ only, with us as yet to fully benefit – a distant prospect awaiting death itself and a final judgement. But although Paul may say in his letter to the Colossians that our life in Christ will be revealed when Christ is revealed there’s also the admission that this life, though hidden, is life now. So what I’d like to suggest, though you may not feel it, or always feel it, is that in Christ we too are resurrected now and I’m thinking of Peter and Mary Magdalen raised to life again in the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection, for in a sense when he died they died with him, forlorn, lost , not knowing who was to save them now, surrendered once again to the possibility of sin and helplessness. But Christ lives and they and we live too – we are in recovery with the best of companions – we may fall again, and almost certainly will, but Christ is with us as we are in Christ, the Christ who accompanies us as we accompany him – who clings as closely to us now as ever sin once did and more so for
all who believe in Jesus will have their sins forgiven through his name,
And not only our sins but, as we heard in yesterdays midday reading, the sins of all the world. That’s a rum meditation for Easter Sunday you might say – reminding us once again of our sin – but I can think of none better for a world so desperately in need of help, in need of God’s forgiveness, in need of Christ.