Taking eye-witness accounts seriously
Third Sunday of Easter: 26th April, 2009
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
On this Anzac Day weekend our thoughts and our prayers go out for those who have died in war. We pray too for those who in these times are also in great danger — thinking especially of civilians caught up in the civil war in Sri Lanka — and also our current service men and women. We remember all who face war and acts of terrorism. And we pray for the peace of the world and the safety of our nation and people. And we remember.
Yesterday, as we do every Anzac Day, we laid a wreath at the wayside cross, our parish war memorial, which honours our own dead from the First World War. Prayers were offered and the Last Post was sounded for the recorded 366 young men and women from this parish who went away to that war. Each year we call to mind this fact. Consider the impact that would have had on a close knit community. That is of course why such a striking memorial was erected so soon afterwards and placed in such a prominent position. Nearly one in four of those who went were killed. Each year we particularly remember one of them, Noel Edward Bechervaise, a 23-year-old server, who died around noon at Gallipoli on that first Anzac Day 94 years ago. His modest little memorial is on the wall of the nave. 'Peace to the unconquered ones' says the Latin inscription carved in large letters upon our wayside cross, beneath the almost life-sized bronze figure of the crucified Lord. For that is how they were not conquered. Their Lord had gone ahead of them. Perhaps young Noel is for us a symbol of them all.
On this the third Sunday of the Easter season we are still giving our attention to the appearances of the Lord to his disciples after the resurrection. As Luke presents the narrative, all this is happening into the evening of the day of the resurrection. The women had reported the empty tomb. Peter too had gone to see it and evidently, while the rest of the events on the road to Emmaus were unfolding, the Lord had actually appeared to Peter. Each gospel describes things differently because, as Bishop Graeme so interestingly reminded us at the ISS seminar last Tuesday, it is a whole variety of eyewitness accounts that we are dealing with. Of course they will differ in emphasis.
But the point is, something major had happened and a whole lot of people had seen it. The women, including Mary Magdalene, Peter, Cleopas and his companion on the road out of Jerusalem and soon all of them gathered together did actually see the risen Lord. This is the one they had all seen die on the cross. They had seen him buried in the tomb. The gospels and Acts include these testimonies, by then handed down and now continuing to be so, some 2,000 years later.
Hope is at the centre of it all. That then is what is at the centre of the gospel lesson for today where, in the middle of all this wonderment and discussion, Jesus is there with the whole group of them. We can imagine the range of emotions: astonishment, fear, joy and confusion all in together. Having shown them his hands and his side, there follows a wonderfully down to earth moment — 'Now then, have you anything to eat?' Relax, believe, and hope. Then go out and tell others so that they can share in this grace. You are the witnesses to these things, the Lord said. Talk about this, live out the implications of this in a world and to all the rest in every generation who are going to have to rely on what you pass on and then on what they themselves come to experience of the life of the risen Lord in the community of faith.
Immediately then, that gospel has moved to the place that every succeeding generation is in. We are not in the position to actually see that risen Lord, let alone to take his hand or to eat with him or talk with him. How blessed are those who have not seen, who cannot see, and yet do believe as we heard last week. This is the gift of faith.
Now that experience becomes something that in the first instance was at the centre of the preaching of Peter and then Paul. Others could see and hear that these two leaders were utterly convinced that their Lord had risen from the dead. That he was the promised Messiah. That this was therefore the way to reconciliation with God, that this is indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that here there is forgiveness and a totally fresh start. The movement is in every sense from death to life. People could see and hear that this is what these apostles believed and if necessary were prepared themselves to die for. And yet to die in hope. The blood of those martyrs, like Peter our own patron was, as the saying goes, to be the seed of the Church. Others would immediately arise to take their place and the community of those who wished to follow in this way continued to grow.
But what about us? How might this connect with the way we might live and believe and hope? We are offered the opportunity to see and experience something different to that literally hands on approach that was open to Thomas or to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. But what we can experience is nonetheless still real. This is to do with hearts and lives. We hear the accounts of what happened then and in particular all these post resurrection stories that are in the gospels and Acts and in the letters of Paul. This testimony does have an impact and offers inspiration. So too do the stories of the saints great and small of every generation. We will each have some favourites. But as well we can see it and know it in our own lives, now. We can also see around us, every now and then, the experience of this resurrection, this new life, in the lives of those who themselves have experienced it, are experiencing it. The Risen Lord in them. The Easter hope in them and lived out.
This is particularly the case when we are being sorely tested. When things are really difficult. When things go badly wrong. The Easter faith is the faith that will carry us in those times. So it is that the lessons for these three Sundays of this Easter season so far, starting with Easter Day itself, have been building up in our memories the composite record of what happened that day, as those who were there reported it. And they make it clear that it was something that, for some, took a while to be able to be absorbed and understood. But when it was, fear and doubt and disillusion were replaced with a great and exuberant joy, that nothing was able to contain. Yes indeed God was with them whatever and wherever their circumstances. That is at the heart of the Easter good news that is ours to receive.
The Lord be with you.
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