Homily for Easter Sunday 9th April 2023

Homily for Easter Sunday

9th April 2023

We have reached a new beginning. Lent has passed, and our sacrifices have taught us a few things about our own lives, where we have failed, where things have gone wrong and need to be repaired. The season has changed. The Summer is drawing near and there is new hope. Our Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

For some, especially children who have lost their grandparents, this may be hard to understand. They, in their short lives, have experienced the pain of death that comes when someone we cherish passes from this world into the next. From the perspective of a child where once the world had seemed safe, they see their parents grieve. Tears flow down their cheeks and are confused by the pain they witness in mourning. Then to be told that Jesus has come back to life, can seem hard for them to believe. They can be confused.

In Matthew Gospel, we are told how Jesus visited the official’s house where his daughter had died. When Jesus told them she was only asleep, they laughed at him, but when he took her hand, she stood up.

In John’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus’s friend, Lazarus had died, and he waited two more days before leaving to go to Bethany to visit Martha and Mary. Both were distressed, Jesus had not arrived sooner. His human nature also grieves as tears streamed down his face when he meets Mary. Yet he came to show God’s glory by raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus told Martha and Mary he was the resurrection, and whosoever believed in him, even if dead would live, and those who believed in him would never die. He then asked if they believed?

At the Last Supper, Jesus institutes the Eucharistic Sacrament, offering his followers bread and wine, telling them this is his body and blood. As Luke’s Gospel tells us, his body was given for us all, a memorial of him; and his blood poured out as a new covenant. Reminding us of how God’s first covenant with Abraham was to make him a father of a “multitude of nations”, symbolised through circumcision.

Not long after, when Abraham in his old age was given a son through Sarah, God put him to a test, telling him to sacrifice Isaac, but moments before he did, God provide a sacrificial ram, telling him not to have the boy as God provides.

The Passover feast remembers when God asked the Israelites while slaves to the Egyptians, to mark their doorposts with lambs’ blood and prepared unleavened bread for the journey ahead so that death could Passover them as his chosen people. Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to shed his blood to save all of us during this Jewish festival.

Abraham had not refused to offer his son as a sacrifice, and neither did God when he gave his only begot son, Jesus, the Lamb of God, to be the only sacrifice he would accept for all the sins of the world, throughout the entire population of humanity, from the past, in the present and those still to come.

But Jesus’s death was not the end. Mary Magdala had visited the tomb and was surprised to find the stone rolled back. She could see inside, but there was nobody. In John’s Gospel, she runs to find Peter and John assuming the body had been taken.

While the two disciples investigate inside the tomb, Mary sees two angels who ask her who she is looking for. She turns and sees what she supposes is a gardener, not recognising the person. It is only when he speaks to her does her mind gets turned and his identity is revealed. It is the risen Lord, and she believes.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Mary Magdala, accompanied by another Mary, witnesses a great earthquake and the Angel of the Lord roll back the stone. The guards are scared stiff, acting as though dead. The Angel tells the women not to fear as the crucified Lord had risen from the dead. Full of awe, the two Marys run to tell the disciples what they had seen and are stopped in their tracks as they are greeted by the resurrected Jesus, who brings a new covenant with God.

Through our prayers, and listening to what we are taught in the Old Testament, and the New Testament, especially the Gospels, we can come to believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. He wants to be near us if we are truthful and repent of our sins. Our responsibility is to pass on our faith to our children and grandchildren, to help them believe. If we have a personal relationship with Jesus, through prayer and getting to know him through the Bible, this journey can become easier, as He will take our burdens from us. In this way we can help the little ones come to understand how the Resurrected Jesus will bring life to those who believe in him.

Easter has arrived and we can renew our Christian journey in faith.

Amen.