Easter Sunday - two down, one to go!

Two services down, one to go! Service one was a lovely all age communion in a growing village chapel - 23 of us there from ages of six months to over 80. A hearty plate of bacon, scrambled egg, sausage and mushrooms after it. Service too was a lively all age communion in my largest church, a vibrant time of worship and praise, and much laughter. Tonight I am offering a gentle Taize service. I am looking forward to that.

I've enjoyed writing a blog every day this week. It's been a very powerful Holy Week for me doing it and experiencing different kinds of worship almost every day. The passage about resurrection in Matthew has struck me this year so I close this week of blogging with thoughts on how the Easter God shows himself.

We want to have Easter and still have our world unrocked by resurrection. We are amazingly well adjusted to the same old world. We want tomorrow to go back to normal - or if we are clergy people, to sleep!

Resurrection is a shock that needs some thinking about. I think that's why Matthew says that when there was Easter, the whole earth shook. Luke does Easter as a meal on Sunday evening with the Risen Christ. John has resurrected Jesus encounter Mary Magdalene in the garden. But Matthew? Easter is an earthquake with doors shaken off tombs and dead people walking the streets, the stone rolled away  and an angel sitting on it.

Well, there was an earthquake this past week – a 3.2 magnitude one in this country, near Oakham in Rutland where I used to live. Oakham folk don’t get excited  about very much, it is Middle England and we’ve gone there to retire. Sometimes as minister there I wished for a bit of a rumbling!     

Here are some tweets about it: 

"We've just had an earthquake in Oakham. The house was shaking for about 10 secs."

 "What the hell was that. Whole house shook about 7.07am! It was either an explosion or earthquake in Rutland. Anyone else feel it?"

 "Woke me up. I thought the house was falling down." 

Sara Dodd, who is in Whissendine, tweeted that it "felt like an explosion but without any sound. I even thought a train had crashed at the back of us."

Matthew says Easter is an earthquake that shook the whole world.

We try to "explain" the resurrection. One says that Jesus was in a deep, drugged coma and woke up. Another said that the disciples got all worked up in their grief and just fantasized the whole thing.

You can't "explain" a resurrection. The truth of Jesus tells on the faces of the befuddled disciples who witnessed it. Not one of them expected Easter. Death, defeat, while regrettable, are utterly explainable. 

Let me leave you with Tom Wright’s commentary on Matthew 28:

“Earthquakes, angels, women running to and fro, a strange command. A highly unlikely tale. Yes indeed, and that’s the point. It was always a strange, crazy, wild story. What else would you expect if, after all, the ancient dream of Israel was true?

If the God who made the world had finally acted to turn things around, to take all the forces of chaos, pride, greed, darkness and death and allow them to do their worst, exhausting themselves in the process? If Jesus of Nazareth really was the Son of God, what else would you expect? A calm restatement of some philosophical truths for sage old greybeards to ponder – or events which blew the world apart and put it back in a new way?”

As we began with Jesus a week ago entering the city in a new way, so we celebrate Easter by singing as God's people "O sing to the Lord a new song, his right hand and his mighty arm have brought him victory."

Awesome stuff!