In Eastertide we are in a world made new. Like the disciples we encounter the power of the risen Christ. Like the disciples our reactions will be many and varied. That is because his power is one beyond our wildest dreams.

 The Gospel writers tell us how the disciples experience an extraordinary sense of Jesus’s continued presence with them after his death. It is not all the time, and not with exactly the same kind of bodily presence that Jesus had before, but still they have a definite sense of his risen presence.

Their writings do not pull their punches in describing the disciples’ initial reactions. They range from terror and bewilderment (Mark), to joy and praise (Matthew), amazement (Luke) and faith and doubt (John).

Some people find these diverse reactions surprising, and the resulting open endedness of the story of the earthly ministry of Jesus unsatisfying. But that’s a mistake. If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here. The world has been completely remade. The immediate result is inevitably strong and varying reactions, and openness as to what will come next.

From the Acts of the Apostles we know what the disciples decided. Initial terror, bewilderment and doubt gave way within a few days to faithful joy and praise. They decided that their experiences of the resurrection confirmed that Jesus is the King who God had promised his people: the one who offers the way of reconciliation between people, and between us and God. And it confirmed that they should live a new kind of life, following the commandments Jesus had given them. They would live in a way which prioritised healing, good deeds in the service of others, and release from whatever oppresses us

What the disciples decided is important, because of what it led to. They received new gifts of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. They fulfilled Jesus’s command to establish a new community, the Church: a new form of human life, based on the Easter faith. In this community humanity is remade anew. The divisions and boundaries and bigotries of human society are transcended and rendered obsolete. Its new ways are the paths of forgiveness, peace-making, patience and truth-telling.

What is even more important, though, is how we respond. How do we understand the presence of the risen Jesus in our lives? Do we believe that he goes before us into the Galilee of our lives: to our homes, our workplaces? Do we then choose to live this new life, joining and to helping to build the community of the Church, and the Kingdom which Jesus proclaimed? This is a Kingdom which is ordered, not to the old order of sin and death, but to the new order of reconciled life in all its fullness.

The Cross was humanity’s greatest No to God. But the Resurrection of Jesus was God’s even greater Yes. The Easter Faith is to join in that Yes. Yes to the renewal of creation, and to fullness of life with God for ever.

Alleluia, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

 

Rev Philip Krinks