From Revd Dr. Mark Cheetham
Dear Friends,
I want to begin this Easter message by inviting you to continue your reflections on our beautiful creation embroidery, which holds both creation and resurrection (we are made, and we are yet more wonderfully re-made) as mirror images of each other. They are held together by the will and loving purposes of God, who is our Life-giver. Such knowledge has endless implications and ramifications for us, all of them glorious. In our life with and in God, there are no dead ends, in God there is endless patience and resourcefulness that cannot be defeated by even the worst of our sins.
At Easter, we are invited to rejoice that the cross and the empty tomb have been present in the heart of God since the very foundation of the world. I note that the account of the resurrection begins in darkness and despair, the women friends of Jesus creep out to give the dead body of Jesus the proper care that was not possible as his body was removed from the cross in a hurry. None of the 12 disciples are present at this dawn moment, perhaps they’re overwhelmed by despair, frightened for their own safety, paralysed by grief.
The brave women who go, are the first witnesses to the resurrection, they are not believed when they share that the tomb is empty and they receive a message that Jesus is risen. You might try imagining yourself in those moments; to help, I point you to one of the pictures in the Methodist Modern Art Collection which captures this moment. Richard Bavin, painted ‘The Empty Tomb’. It brilliantly uses simple shapes and contrasting colours to define the space and express the empty tomb. Its perspective is from inside looking out, the light coming through the opened tomb highlighting the cloths left on the slab, picking out dimly the features of the space.
Richard Bavin – The Empty Tomb – from the Methodist Modern Art Collection © TMCP, used with permission. www.methodist.org.uk/artcollection
It is a still, quiet moment, but it is not the same stillness of death, there is a sense of anticipation. Although the quiet would not necessarily have been comforting or strengthening, but something to be endured while the disciples, named and unnamed regrouped and started on a new plan.
The women who first go to the tomb are faced with a young man in a white robe by the rolled away stone who reassured them Jesus is not here but that he would be going ahead of them and they will see him. It is only in Mark’s gospel account that there is no actual appearance by Jesus. There is one later on, but it is possible the verses from 9 onwards are added to the account at a later date. The women’s response to run leaves the original audience, and us, with a cliffhanger ending until we realise that something must have been said at some point, otherwise we would not be sat here today, experiencing these words.
The artist Richard Bavin dwelt, and invites us to dwell, in relative stillness and reflect on how the empty tomb offers the possibility that something so empty could mean that so much could be fulfilled.
The joy of Easter Day is not about a happy ending to the story of Jesus, but rather, and more importantly, it is good news that we are all, like the women, like the first disciples named and unnamed, forgiven people and healed of injury, guilt or failure. We are, the Church, a community of genuinely forgiven people called to show plainly to others that we are a community of forgiving people and a forgiving Church. The resurrection of Jesus is the remaking of creation itself. The resurrection of Jesus is the word of God speaking in the heart of darkness bringing life out of nothing and bringing the human race into existence as the bearers of his image and likeness.
Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Rev Mark