Easter Sunday April 2007

The role of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in the christian life has been our theme all through Lent and Holy Week and it’s also the key to understanding Easter. The Resurrection is not just about Jesus rising from the dead. It’s also about the new life we ourselves are called to live as a result of the Resurrection. The second reading last night talked about us being dead to sin and alive to God. Today’s reading talked about making ourselves into a completely new batch of bread and getting rid of the old yeast of evil and wickedness. But what does all this mean? It’s one thing to say that we are an Easter people, but what’s that? How would you recognize such a people and how do we know we are one? Well, the answer lies in evidence that our prayer, fasting and almsgiving are bearing fruit in our lives. So what is this fruit?

Well, the prayer we talked about was not the prayer that asks for things; intercessory prayer as it is called. It was contemplative prayer, the prayer that transforms us from within and so transfigures the way we see the world and everything in it. It’s the prayer that leads us beyond the superficial into the depths of things and there are certain infallible signs of its presence in a person’s life. And the first of these is gratitude. There is no more certain sign of the presence of God in our lives than gratitude. A person moved by the Spirit of the Risen Jesus is one who is grateful for so many things. He or she is grateful for life itself and for the gift of creation. All kinds of things will happen over the years, some joyful and some sad, but through it all there will be a deep sense of gratitude to God for his presence in everything and a firm conviction that, in the end, even if it were possible to do so, we would not change any of it. Not for such a person the pessimism, bitterness and resentment which blight so many lives and spoil the one chance at living each of us has been given by God. And from this fundamental position of gratitude flows the other great sign of the Resurrection, joy. And so the question facing us this Easter is whether we can see in ourselves evidence of this gratitude and this joy. They are not the kind that lie on the surface but are rooted instead on a deep conviction that, when seen through the transfiguring eyes of faith, life is good, the world is good and people are good. So is that how we see it or are we still trapped in the darkness of the tomb, unable to see the goodness in all things that God saw in the story of creation, heard by millions all over the world last night at the Easter Vigil.

And then there was fasting, penance, self-denial or whatever name you like to give it. We saw how it was designed to deal with a conflict that goes on inside every human being and expressed so powerfully by St Paul when he struggles to understand why he keeps doing the things he doesn’t want to do and not doing the things he does want to do. This is the never-ending tug-of-war between what is best in ourselves and what is worst. As human beings we are capable of great good and great evil, and one of the signs of the Resurrection at work in us is that the good in us, or, more accurately, the God in us, is winning that battle. When we were baptized, St Paul told us last night at the Easter Vigil, we went into the tomb with Jesus so that, as he rose from the dead, we might live a new life in him. That new life is the way of the Gospel and it involves a huge revolution in the way we think. It means moving beyond human logic and human ways of thinking and learning, through the Spirit, to live according to the teaching of Jesus. And so the question facing us more starkly today than on any other day is whether we believe in the Gospel or not. We know what it says. We know that it’s about loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us and so on. We have heard it all a thousand times. But do we believe it? Has it taken root in our hearts? Is it what we desire and long for? Or, when the crunch comes, do we live our lives by another set of standards entirely? On the answer to that question hangs our whole lives.

And so we came to almsgiving, shorthand for the openness and generosity of heart which will characterise anyone who is being moved by the Spirit of the Risen Jesus. We saw signs of it in the second reading, in the words Peter speaks to Cornelius and his household in chapter ten of the Acts of the Apostles. Peter was a Jew, trapped in the limitations of Jewish thinking. But in chapter ten of Acts he has a vision which blows his mind. St Luke, the author of Acts, tells how the law forbade a Jew to mix with people of another race but how Peter, his whole view of the world now transfigured by the vision, reaches out to Cornelius and his family. And so it will be for any man or woman of the Resurrection. Led by the Spirit, our hearts will open up and expand to welcome and embrace every human being on the face of the earth. Like the early Church reaching out into the pagan world, we will reach beyond the barriers which separate human beings one from another. The Church itself, present in every continent and in every country, is a sign of this and each local christian community, like our own, is called to be a sign of it too in its local area. And so to be an Easter people is to be an open people, a welcoming people, a generous people, a people with its arms extended to embrace the world and love it the way God loves it.

Grateful; joyful; revolutionary; faith-filled; open; generous; welcoming; universal; these are the qualities we will find in any individual or community filled with the Spirit of the Risen Jesus. This is what it means to be an Easter People, a people of the Resurrection. It doesn’t come easily. Resurrection is only possible after death as we die to what is not of God in us so that something new can be born. What gives me joy this Easter and makes me feel grateful is that I believe we are engaged in that struggle.








The death and Resurrection of Jesus is either the most important event in human history or the greatest lie ever told. There is no middle way. If it is not true, then we are wasting our time here. But if it is true, it is the key to understanding everything that happens in the world. And so we pray for the grace we need to confront this choice openly and honestly this Easter and decide where we stand on it.……..Lord hear us

The process of death and resurrection is the most basic law of creation. The cosmos itself is in a constant process of death and new life. And so we ask God to open our minds to recognize how this same process has been at work in our individual lives and to stir in us a deep sense of gratitude for the presence of God in everything that has happened to us since the day and hour we were born……………… ..Lord hear us

The best in us is very very good and the worst in us very very bad. To be men and women of the Resurrection is to be people deeply engaged in the process of dying to what is bad and being born every day to what is good. This means doing what Jesus did throughout his Passion, which was to live out of the deeper part of himself and move beyond his more superficial feelings and desires. And so we pray for the courage and commitment we need to do this……………………………..Lord hear us

Throughout the world this Easter many thousands of people are being baptized or, in the case of those already baptized in another christian denomination, received into full communion with the Church. And so we pray for them, especially those here in our own diocese. We pray that we will be a Church worthy of them where their faith can deepen and grow and that they will learn to live with our many faults and failings.……Lord hear us

Jesus came into the world so that we should have life and have it to the full. This means entering deeply into whatever experiences life brings and finding God in them. Some will be happy, some sad. There will be a time for laughter and a time for tears. But we pray that, in the very deepest part of ourselves, in good times and in bad, we will experience gratitude and joy rooted in Easter and the Resurrection ……………………….Lord hear us

For millions in today’s world, Easter means nothing. It is no more than a time for going on holiday or eating chocolate. And so we pray for the men and women of our time, that they will rediscover the meaning of this great feast through their contact with individuals and communities of faith. We pray that we will not fail them by the lukewarm nature of our faith and our failure to live authentic christian lives based on the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels………………………………………Lord hear us