Welcome! This is Easter Sunday, April 12th, 2020, the day we affirm that despite this Corona virus pandemic and all the sufferings that it brings, we know death does not win!

We know that light is stronger than darkness, and we know, because:

CHRISTOS ANESTI! ALETHOS ANESTI!

JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN TODAY – INDEED!

Dear God, thank you for life!

Thank you for love!

Thank you for hope!

In Jesus Name

Amen.

 “…and he went away wondering about what happened” What DID happen on that first Easter Sunday, and what does it all actually mean for us? `We know it must mean something wonderful because, as Christ-followers for over 2000 years, we’ve celebrated this as one of the two central pillars of our faith: that Jesus (1) was born, and having lived and taught, (2) that he died, and then rose from the dead and lives! But what does it mean? Is it some enacted metaphor, meant to be understood at levels that are not always obvious to us – you know, like Jesus’ parables? We know the parables expose eternal truths that we only begin to arrive at as we allow ourselves to chew on them and be worked on by them… Is Jesus’ Easter death and resurrection meant to be approached and embraced by us like that? …something to be gnawed on, wrestled with… I wonder to what extent the beautifully complexity of Easter is not so much to be understood and explained as to be allowed –by faith- to insinuate itself into the depths of our spirituality – never for us perfectly to understand as to be transformed by…

Along with millions/billions probably, down the millennia – with all my heart – I believe that this resurrection is something that actually, genuinely, really happened, historically… But, unlike any other historical event, I also believe that its profundity, its significance, is something we’ll never be able fully to grasp! Because here is something infinitely sacred and of God and of us, awe-full, meant to stretch and to bless us, nurture & challenge us…

And so, with St Peter, here we are wondering once again not only about what had happened, but especially about what it all means…

Humanity has struggled to resolve this – struggles which are largely responsible for the formation of our various Christian denominations. Different theories have emerged in the church over the past millennia – theories of ATONEMENT to explain Jesus’ main work here as being the restoration of humanity’s relationship with God after our fall under Satan’s influence. What was once separated by sin is now being brought back together again: At-ONE-Ment!

The early church fathers[i] taught that Christ’s death was necessary for God to do that in order to pay back Adam’s debt to Satan, and that 3 days later God tricked the Evil One by bringing Jesus back to life. But really? Could God once have been ‘in debt’ …as well as be a deceiver… Really?

Variations of this[ii] agree that Jesus’ death was necessary but not to satisfy the devil so much as to satisfy God. They speak about ‘Satisfaction Atonement’ or ‘Penal Substitutionary Atonement’ meaning that it was God who needed blood sacrifice to bring humanity home, and so it was God who provided Jesus as the necessary sacrificial lamb: ‘the One’ whom John the Baptist said ‘has come to take away the sin of the world…

There are many scriptures that could be understood in this way but, as I age, I find myself increasingly struggling with that – if that is all there is. I find myself coming increasingly to agree with how 12thC philosopher and theologian Peter Abelard wrote, that: Jesus’ dying and rising was not to pay God (or the devil) off as to reveal the nature of God’s love… Instead, he was revealing something of who God is and what life lived in God’s love is all about! Richard Rohr points also to the 13thC writings of John Duns Scotus who, instead of the language of ‘debt atonement and blood sacrifice’ goes to other scriptures[iii] that speak about the beautiful perfection of God’s creation now utterly revealed in Jesus. He rejected the id