Easter Day - Year C

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Certainly a day of joy! Does the church look joyful, feel joyful! Absolutely.

What is this joy? what is this joy?

For people "looking in" to this story, to people who have "stepped in" for a short while, and even for people who feel they have "been in" for a long time..... who can say, who can define, who can tell about the joy of Easter in their life, in the life of the church, and in the life of the world? What does it FEEL like? What does it mean? And ..... how real is it?

And then, if it is something we really want, how do we get it?

Isaiah, the prophet of the eighth century before Christ certainly comes very close to describing a world that many of us would agree, yes, is of joy. 28 centuries ago, he wrote in the part of his writings we heard today, prophesying God's own words. The people were asking, you see, for a majestic return of their God, the real God of the Old Testament - through the respected and highly regarded Isaiah they want God to reveal himself in power as in the days of old. They want the trumpeting thunder of Moses on Mount Sinai.... the previous chapter reads.."O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.... to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!"

They want more than a sign; they want God to present Godself without any doubt or uncertainty that God is still God, mightily in charge, giving victory in battles, fertility in wombs and making short work of anyone not in favour. And they want this because, and I quote..... "now consider, we are all your people. Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation." In their words: Stop punishing us God.

We can certainly relate to this feeling of abandonment of a good God in this world we belong to. We too can rage at life and a planet that seemingly will never get things in the right balance for people to live equally and in equity. We too can rage that our cities are places of wilderness - there are children who live on the street, there is hunger, there is corruption and violence, there are broken relationships and victims of that breakage, there is frailty of expectations - any feeling of safety and surety in life is always short-lived. All might seem to be going well when... we get ill, we have a break-down, someone we love dies, love statements turn into goodbye statements......... things don't work out they way they should, it seems, all the time. As the song says, "it's a jungle out there".

So the people of Israel are feeling like that - where are you God? and come back to us in a way that is forceful and domineering and that says you are totally in control of us and everything is going to be ok.

And, through Isaiah, God says... I have been here all the time, even when you didn't want me. Listen to this response and think about the world we are part of today.... God says, just before the words we heard in the reading today:
"I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, "Here I am, here I am," to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, ..." and so it goes, and it would seem God is pretty fed up and angry and there then occurs much judgement language.

But then, as we listen on this day of Easter, we hear God's way forward.... "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind." And God's images of this new creation....... "I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime." And Isaiah goes on with wonderful images of prosperity and peace abounding in this new creation, with not only noone wanting for anything, but not needing to even express that want... "before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear."

Well, that is a world where there would be no rage because by the sounds of it, there will be nothing to rage against. It would seem the essence of joy, the nature of peace. "The wolf and the lamb will feed together." Ah. It would seem, would it not, the real essence of joy, of contentment that is much deeper and permanent than happiness. In other words, something of which we would say... "we really want this."

It is perhaps, though, not what the people around Isaiah were looking for to hear. In the sense that what Isaiah was giving them was a utopia close to heaven, and yet how on earth (literally) was it going to happen? There's the image - how do we get there? Because let's face it, it is all a pipedream if the way to get there is not also given to us.

The same response comes from us also. There is the prophesy. Twenty eight centuries ago. And we don't seem very close... so, the question on this day when we seemingly celebrate the greatest event of joy is... what difference did Jesus really make, because wolfs and lambs are still eating very separately as far as I can tell. How do we get there?

There is no other way to say this; we have to believe that the tomb was empty for exactly the reason Jesus said it would be so. There can be no theories; there can be no surmises; there can be no ghost analogies. Jesus, unlike Isaiah, did not prophesy to what it will be like. What he said, and says, is actually what it is like, how it is now. The new heavens and a new earth ARE created; the kingdom has begun, it has come into being. We have to believe in that reality and it becomes so. It is not a catch 22 - it is the gift of the life, death and life of Jesus Christ who is God.

Jesus brought all the prophesy and scripture and story of the Hebrew Scriptures, the God story to that time, not only into fruition, but into his new creation. We recall again his words at the beginning of his ministry when he stood in his own church and read from the prophet Isaiah. The prophesy becomes present, living tense as Jesus reads:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."

He sat down. All eyes were on him. And he said TODAY, TODAY this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. It has begun, the new creation - you, we, are to believe in it.

So why are the lamb and wolf still enemies, out to get each other? Because we, humanity, are not taking on fully the ramifications of the Christ-reality. When we believe, it is so. When we believe the empty tomb is about resurrected life, our own resurrected life, then we live in the way Christ calls us to do. Which means WE are to bring good news to the poor; WE are to release the captives; WE are to bring sight and help to the afflicted; WE are to free the oppressed.

And when we live THAT way, we live the Easter joy. And when we live THAT way we feel the Easter joy. That's how we get there - that's the Easter gift Jesus gave. He showed us the way to joy, to a full relationship with God. We have to believe we are the Body of Christ, and that his Spirit is with us. We have to believe that on this day we can claim the completion of prophesies for the new creation; God's promise has come true.

What joy! And do you know how we FEEL that joy, how I FEEL that joy? Through you; through the people that claim such belief; through witnessing and living with your faith, your belief in the God story. We asked right at the beginning - how do we GET this joy - and it is through and with ourselves as we take the living story of Jesus into our life, and into the lives of others.

When I witness the courage of the bed ridden because they believe Jesus is with them, I feel and know the Easter joy.

When I am part of a community that takes seriously the vows of the sacraments because Jesus asked us to do so, I feel and know the Easter joy.

When I see humanity rush to care for the earthquake victims, to go to dangerous countries as peacemakers, and to sacrificially give of their own resources to help the poor, I feel and know the Easter joy.

When I see people take another step in their day, another breath in their life, and pronounce a word of hope in a seemingly hopeless situation of brokenness, I feel, know and am inspired in the Easter joy.

When I enter a place of worship and see and feel people's love of God, through the beauty and commitment of preparation and devotion, I weep with joy at other's knowing of that joy.

We, sharing the story in faith, and giving our lives to that faith, ARE the Easter joy.

Joy to the world. The Lord is come. Let earth receive its king.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!