April 30, 2006

Jane Knowles

The Third Sunday after Easter
     Passiontide 
    1 John 3:1-7     
Luke 24:36-48

We all know how many senses we have, don't we, and which ones predominate? Five I think at the last count. As civilisations have progressed so senses have changed. I think that originally our sense of smell was very acute, as was our hearing, but now the sense of sight seems to predominate, and many of you have been used to reading sermons or lecture notes as they are delivered; indeed in schools children have tremendous difficulty in concentrating or focussing their attention at all if they haven't anything to read, or if they haven't a fully activated computer screen in front of them with light and action and all the rest of it; so today I challenge you, if you have your sermon notes in front of you , put them down and allow yourself to be transported back to that 1st century somewhere in the middle east, to the hot dry dust of a small town during a Roman occupation, where fear and rebellion are in the air. Troubled times; rumours, threats, crowds, mobs -- not unlike that which we see in Palestine and Israel today.

Anyone who reads an account of the post resurrection narratives cannot fail to be struck by the contrast between before Easter and afterwards. Before Easter, great drama, heightened tension, fear, betrayal, humility, love all bound up together in a great journey along the road to Golgotha, step by ghastly step. I don't know how many of you have been to Jerusalem, I hesitate to call it the Holy Land, because that seems so far from the case these days, but when we went I was very impressed with the old stone cobbled road along which Jesus may have travelled carrying his cross. The end of the journey; horrendous, and yet from the moment that Mary Magdalene saw him in the garden and heard him call her name everything has changed. The tension disappears into the ether like so much mist rising out of the valleys in the Bay of Islands. Mary Magdalene saw him and knew him. The disciples in the Upper room saw him and to pick up from Denys' wonderful sermon last week, when he talked about the cowering disciples in a locked room, the transformation from that situation to the excited and strong and confidant evangelists that they became; surely all that is at the very least remarkable.

I love to hear and to read the different accounts of the post resurrection experiences in the gospels, and so many of them are involved with our senses. Mary Magdalene heard her name being called; Thomas was invited to touch; the disciples on the road to Emmaus were invited to see and to taste, and Simon Peter and the others must have smelt the fish being grilled from across the water, after Jesus had told them to put the net out again. Jesus appeared in so many ways to so many people, that gradually it was accepted; the impossible had happened; he had indeed risen from the dead, and his opening greeting was “Peace be with you”. I hadn't thought about these words in quite the way of a Jewish shalom, that Clay talked about recently. That bit's easy to imagine isn't it? Jesus the Jewish rabbi calling Shalom as he entered a building, and I think that's a wonderful image.

But I am struck too by the universality of it all. Here we are in New Zealand, with our own interpretations of Jesus the man; and there is something familiar of our own culture and heritage as well as the Jewish one. Last week I attended a wedding here and the hymn chosen was Jerusalem; I'm sure you all know it, and included in the words are “til we have built Jerusalem in England 's green and pleasant land”. How peculiar. What was Blake saying? I think it's something to do with connection and individuality as well as otherness. Jesus is here in this land identifying with you and me, and you and me with him from whatever culture or background we come. Those lines of Blake could have been written here too, except that they don't scan. Something about bringing Jesus here as well as we going there.

A couple of years ago I was privileged to attend a sort of English Oberammagau in a beautiful part of Surrey , at a place called Wintershall. I had my doubts before I went. English reserve and all that, (even though I'm Welsh) but in the event it was a wonderful day; a whole day. I can see in my mind's eye so many things from that day, not least when somehow the thousands of us who were there were able to share in the feeding of the 5000, out on the hillside and also being part of the crowd as we made our way, chatting and staring, and being just a little bit frightened by the dressed up Roman soldiers who were all around; but the thing I remember most was the resurrection appearance; of Jesus walking in bright white shining robes, (it was a beautiful summer's day) along the side of an English lake in dappled sunshine and a disciple leaping out of the boat and jumping into the water to try to walk and to swim towards him.

What tosh you may all be thinking; the first Easter wasn't a bit like that; but in some way I believe it was, because it's personal to me and to you wherever you may be. For on that day in Surrey we were able to identify with Jesus from our own culture, and to be moved and more than that to be uplifted and to have some understanding in the mystery of it all. He came to save us too. At Oberammagau, which is a passion play that only takes place every 10 years, the cast who rehearse for a very long time, become physically like those whom they portray? In S. America the crucifixion and resurrection are also re enacted in a different way, and here I am beginning to understand that the Maori culture contributes and receives in its own way.

Jesus said to the eleven “go now and make all nations my disciples,” and somehow that's exactly what they did, and that to me is the greatest miracle.

The events of small community at a time of great unrest, during Roman occupation 2000 years ago, have been passed on from generation to generation, to all people and all cultures because of one man, whose name was Jesus and today that name is known throughout the world .

More books have been written about him than any other subject; universities have been founded for the study of theology; great minds throughout the centuries have grappled with this great mystery and still we are grappling and exploring today and all because one man died for us and rose from the dead for us because he loved us.