Diocesan News27 Mar 05

Bishop Richard Clarke's Easter Sermon

The sermon preached by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Most Revd Richard Clarke, at an Easter Liturgy of Baptism and Eucharist in Saint Patrick?s Cathedral Trim.

Colossians 3.1 ?Were you not raised to life with Christ? Then aspire to the realm above, where Christ is, seated at God?s right hand.?

It is indeed wonderful today that Baptism and Eucharist are joined together in our celebration of Easter. This placing of baptisms within the Easter liturgy is actually one of the oldest traditions of the Christian Church; it was even customary for baptisms to be ?held over? until Easter Day, when many people of all ages would be baptised together. Baptism and Easter indeed belong to one another and, in a way, this is utterly clear from the words of the baptismal service - dying with Christ so that we may rise with Christ. Those who are now to be baptised in this joyful celebration of the Resurrection are called to open their lives to the risen life of Jesus Christ. Those of you who are here as their sponsors are to help them in this lifelong task of accepting - and then of working through - the implications of being ?raised to life with Christ?.

What does this mean ? being raised to life with Christ - or is it just another spiritual cliché which those who look in on the Christian faith from outside assume to be the entire content of the Christian faith? Nothing tangible or effective, but it sounds sweet. No, being raised to life with Christ means a great deal; it must mean a great deal or else, in the words of the Saint Paul, Christian disciples are indeed ?most to be pitied? - escapists who cannot face the world as it is (and who certainly cannot face death), and who therefore seek to create a fantasy world where deep down everything is wonderful despite all appearances to the contrary.

No, there is a profound reality in the call of the risen Christ to us to join him in his risen life. It is a shocking summons from him to us, and it is one which demands everything of us, but which also offers us everything that could possibly matter in the context of life which is eternal.

It was C S Lewis who once said that he believed in Christianity as he believed in the sun. It was not only because he could see the sun, but because by it he could see everything else. How we see the world and how we act in the world is utterly changed when we can see everything in the light of Christianity, in the Light of Christ -

• Those who others see as worthless or a nuisance become of supreme value to us because we now know - in the light of the Resurrection - that Christ loves them and cares for them just as much as he cares for us. He died for them, as much as he died for us. He offers them his risen life to the same supreme degree that he offers us his life.
• Those whom others see as beyond the pale of respectability become people we must love and accept, to the degree that he loved and accepted them in his life on earth - in other words, totally.
• Those whom others allow to die or be killed because they are of no economic value in a globalized world, or because their deaths may secure greater economic prosperity for our part of the world, become - for us - our brothers and sisters in the love of Jesus Christ who was nailed to a cross because his death was advantageous to vested interests of power and security. His risen life is for them also, not just for those of us who do not care whether they live or die.

This is what it is to see the world in the light of Christ. This is the beginning of aspiring to the realm above rather than crouching contentedly in the mire and depravity of a world which has lost so much of its reason and so many of its moral compasses. We can indeed be encouraged that in these past few days young people in this country showed that decency, neighbourliness, and the spirit of generosity are not totally dead here in Ireland, as they campaigned for one who had come to them as a stranger and an outsider but whom they had come to respect and value. Sadly most of those young people probably cannot see the risen life of Christ in anything that the Church does or says. That is why the call of Christ in baptism is one for radical action and not mere lethargic acquiescence.

But as, in these coming weeks, we read through the different perspectives on the Resurrection of Jesus, others things augment the meaning of the call of Christ in baptism. The first is that we are to be ready for the presence of Christ in places where we do not expect to find him. The disciples who ran to the grave or who cowered in fear in a locked room did not expect to find Christ with them. Those disciples who walked sadly back to what was presumably their home in Emmaus did not expect to be joined by Jesus on the road. Those who had returned to work, their fishing boats, did not expect to find Jesus waiting to talk to them on the shore. In all these places, Christ does not thrust his presence on his disciples. They have to have the perception to see him; they have to have the wisdom and the understanding to ask him to be with them and to bless them with his presence. You and I are to find the risen Christ in the strangest and most unexpected of places, and (we have to add) in places we regard as less than respectable and less than wholesome. The risen Christ certainly won?t just be found here, in this or some other church building, convenient as that might be for us.

But, as we read through the stories of the resurrection, we may spot a further characteristic of resurrection discipleship - that those who encounter the living Christ wish to celebrate that discovery with others. Interestingly, in John?s Gospel, we discover that the first person to seek to spread the news is not one of the apostles, but a woman, Mary Magdalene, not even the most respectable of Jesus' companions, but that is the way of Christ ? never the expected, never the predictable, never the rigidly respectable. But even those who hesitate as they work out the implications of the Resurrection soon join in spreading the extraordinary news of Christ triumphant over all that had seemingly destroyed hope and love. And for us, if we are raised to life with Christ, this is something to share, something for which to party. Among Orthodox Christians, the tradition has remained in many places that Easter is a time for real partying. Easter is not just a liturgical celebration, kept carefully within the walls of the church building, but something which spills out into the whole community. Street parties, picnics, fun and games (even literally) are the ways in which Orthodox Christians can express, outside the church building, the reality of the risen life that is offered by Christ. There is even a tradition of telling jokes as a way of celebrating God?s greatest joke - that it is God who has had the last laugh on Satan who foolishly thought he?d won on Good Friday.

Just as a baptism is a time for happiness and cheerfulness for everyone, far beyond the immediate family and far beyond the confines of the font or the liturgy, so too our joy and elation at Easter should be carried triumphantly outside the doors of this cathedral. Being raised to new life in Christ is not something to be confined to the pew or even the porch.

And so, as together we now celebrate the two great Sacraments of the Kingdom in the joy of Easter, we welcome new members of the Body of Christ in baptism, we share in the Body of Christ in the eucharist, and we proclaim that Christ is risen indeed, and in that certainty, nothing can ever be ordinary, nothing can ever be without hope, and nobody can ever be beyond the reach of love, God?s or ours.