Easter Sunday Morning Homily
Dear brothers and sisters,
First of all may I wish you, on behalf of the Jesuit community who serve Farm Street Church, a very blessed Easter. Thank you so much for tuning in today.
Of course this is anything but a normal Easter. It would be lovely to welcome everyone physically today on a day when we usually attract double the number of our congregation. We know, however, that there have been several thousands at least logging onto our livestream on previous Sundays so I would like to imagine that, although the church is empty, there are thousands out there in our new digital congregation. If you’re here for the first time in a while I want to say a special welcome to you.
We receive many more visitors normally on Easter Sunday because this is the most important Feast of the Christian Year. What we celebrate lies at the very heart of our Faith, the belief that Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and through this we have the gift of new life here on this earth and in eternity in Heaven with Him. It’s normally a day for much celebration. Well, we can’t fabricate that right now, being as we are right in the very midst of this dreadful crisis. We have to come before God as we are, in the midst of a national crisis, with personal and family tragedies.
So how can Easter speak to us this year, without falling into the trap of being unreal and shallow? It’s certainly a challenge to preach about new life when we are right at the highest point of deaths from COVID-19, in lockdown and still unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not proposing anything easy and unqualified today – it runs the risk of making our religion unreal, unconnected with what is really going on in our world. I wonder – I don’t know who is watching – if there are some who have tuned in today looking for an Ester service who are not regular churchgoers, who perhaps have wavering faith, and the last thing anyone wants is the preacher to say: everything is going to be OK because Jesus has risen. In the middle of this crisis that’s not what anyone needs to hear.
So what can we take away today? For the Christian we are called always to learn from every experience and to pray that we can see it in the light of our faith. And there are two things which many people have been saying we may be learning from these last few weeks. They are not necessarily representative but I’ve heard them – on the ‘phone, in the printed word, on social media. One is we have been put in touch again with the basics – we realise how as the human race we are all interconnected - no one is invincible, we are all human beings who can be here one day and gone the next . Whether we are a political leader, a homeless beggar, a prince, we are all equal on a fundamental level. And many are reflecting on the fleeting nature of life, realising that there are things beyond our control, wondering if in fact there is a plan beyond our knowledge. The other thing many are noticing is the goodness of humanity as a whole – the selflessness of those key workers keeping things going, the generosity of volunteers – so many here from Farm Street. So, I would suggest, that there are learnings from this experience in the light of our faith, for those who are religious, in the light of faith in God or a way which permeates life on earth, but for many more a recognition of a new faith in humanity which can emerge from this.
Pope Francis has said much about this. He urges us to use the experience of this now to prepare for a better future which finds a new path for the human race interconnected with each other and with the planet. Rather than exploiting both we must come out of this appreciating both more and being in communion with both as God’s beautiful creation.
I realise I’m not saying much about the resurrection here. It is Easter Sunday but I suspect the audience may be wider than usual and we are not in an Easter frame of mind in our country. I’ve suggested we come to our celebration of Easter as we are, that we approach the empty tomb as we are. And I would suggest we should pay close attention to the scriptures the Church gives us today and place ourselves in the scene. This is the story of a group of people who are I the midst of a crisis, a tragedy, their leader, their friend, their Lord and master, is dead. The whole Jesus movement is about to collapse. It is a crisis point. The women go first to the tomb, and then Peter and the disciple Jesus loved – that is John the author of this Gospel – we might imagine how we would have reacted had we been there, because the whole reaction of these very first followers of Christ, in fact more the reaction of the women than the men, was not unlike our own reaction at times to the Christian faith. Initial disbelief and doubt that this great miracle could have happened, that God had a plan for new life which will transform us and transform our world.
When we look at the experience of the first disciples, of the community of faith in the Risen Lord, which was to become the Church, and we reflectively consider our own experience at this time, we begin to realise that what we have is something very human in common. We are in shock, in fear, in a crisis. And Jesus wants to enter into that and show us how this is not the end, that there will be new life, there will be a new humanity, there is a future. The Christian message has at its centre the belief that we are constantly being transformed, our world is constantly being transformed, so we may claim a more human future in which our common humanity is drawn more closely together.
Why do we believe this? Not because it helps us, because it may give us comfort – no, we believe this because the Lord tells us this in the scriptures and through the teaching of the Church passed on to the first disciples who first found the empty tomb that first fearful Easter morning – St Peter, the doubting prevaricating one included, who would be called by the Lord to build His Church. A true story which we are called to take to heart again and to learn from. As we approach the empty tomb just as we are. May we be filled this Easter with new hope so we may build a more human future for our world in crisis being called again today to new life.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ