The Victory of the Cross (Easter Sunday)

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Psalm 118:14-24 Acts 10.34-43, John 20.1-18

I am an accident-prone runner. I was on a treadmill some time ago, but there was a mirror, badly aligned to the right of the machine. Perhaps it was vanity, wanting to see my graceful athletic form in motion, but I stepped off to the right and was thrown twisted in a bruised pile 10m back into the gym. Somewhat embarrassing.

 Another time in Hyde Park I tripped over my laces, landing in a dishevelled heap at the feet of some woman walking her dog. A friend of mine pointed out that I should have immediately looked up at the woman and said “I imagine you have men falling at your feet all the time.” Unfortunately, I was feeling too sorry for myself, licking my wounds like a cat, and embarrassedly apologizing to the woman for such a gratuitous and unseemly act of spontaneous self-harm. Unnecessary apologizing is a particularly silly habit of the British.

Anyway, I know what you’re thinking, how could such dreadful things happen to such a godly, prayerful young man. Well, given the fact that God sewed on my feet at unusual and impractical angles and gave me the sense of balance of a one-legged rhinocerous, I think it’s fair to say that God is culpable.       

You might though argue that some good will come out of it; that I will receive the consolation of my friends that the wounds will make me stronger. But when I somewhat dramatically registered my humiliation on facebook; my brother “liked” my status; and several other friends lambasted my stupidity for exercising in the first place. And I didn’t get stronger, I just got grumpy.

C.S. Lewis wrote of creatures, that they “cause pain by being born, and live by inflicting pain, and in pain they mostly die. In the most complex of all the creatures, Man, yet another quality appears, which we call reason, whereby he is enabled to foresee his own pain which henceforth is preceded with acute mental suffering, and to foresee his own death while keenly desiring permanence.” The philosopher Thomas Hobbes was more concise in describing the ‘life of man’ as ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. I like to think that no more than three of those words apply to me. Luckily for half the congregation, both those writers were apparently talking about ‘man’.

What is perhaps even more strange about Christians, though, is that every year they insist on telling in forthright detail the account of a betrayal by a close friend, a lynching, a show-trial, torture and an execution. One can complain about video games, horror movies, Sky News and Come Dine with Me; but telling the Passion is apparently done for our spiritual benefit. But it’s this story of death and life that is the heart of our faith. The three days from Good Friday to Easter, today, are the pivot of history, because the way we look at them determines how we see life.

If we remain in Good Friday - the world in which God is dead - the cross is victorious. For sin, victory is violence it is power, keeping the lucky few in place; and so the cross is victory. But If we make it to Easter the cross is still victorious. Because, for love, victory is overcoming yourself and giving yourself for others.

Good Friday, the cross, is ‘the figure of judgement in the reality of victory’. Either we are for violence or we are for love. Either we believe that violence wins the day, or that love does. The fact that we are here celebrating Easter is a declaration that we believe in a thing called love.

But this is not a simple transition to make. The whole purpose of Lent and Holy Week is to try and condition ourselves first of all to the reality of sin. We enter the desert – suffering and temptation. Resisting biscuits and cupcakes. On Palm Sunday and Good Friday we hear the long story of the passion. We know the story, but unless we enter into it again our hearts grow cold to it. It becomes a fairytale, or worse - history - something that happened to other people a long time ago.

Rhiannon and I gave up television for Lent. This went out the window during isolation. But do not be afraid of failure. Failure helps us to enter the story, because as we arrive on the Easter morning, all the disciples have betrayed him. All have abandoned him. All have failed. ‘God will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.’ We can only approach Easter from this position - with guilt chocolate smeared fingers, with a rough hangover, guilty goggle eyes besmirched by Ozarks, from the foot of the cross; the weakness of the flesh; the victory of violence.

And we see this in the disciples on Easter morning. The beloved disciple is hesitant to enter the tomb. They go home not knowing what has happened. In some gospels they’re terrified. Mary weeps with grief. As disciples, our lives, our consciences and our bodies, are suddenly spotlighted. The world is dominated by violence. Right now it’s the violence of disease.

And this virus highlights the plight of those we prefer not to think about. Now unemployment, boredom, financial insecurity, medical insecurity, fear has become mainstream, ‘gone viral’, we know better the plight of those society is failing. And most of us are not cramped like sardines in tiny flats. Right now, the world is replete with suffering. Everything’s not ok. When a hen is hurt the other hens will rush upon it, attacking it with their beaks. And even if we’re not deliberately attacking the weak, we’re stockpiling to protect our own, We’re out enjoying the parks to viral delight.

Worse is when we ourselves face affliction. If we’re not careful we become complicit with it. We stop trying to improve our situation and don’t seek to escape it, or find help – it becomes a parasite living off us, happy with our unhappiness. This is the victory of sin. It is the darkness at noon of Good Friday.

But those who can make the passover to Easter morning, will encounter the victory of love. Mary, standing outside the empty tomb, is beside herself with grief. So much so that she doesn’t recognise Jesus.

When the soul is caught in affliction its first reaction is to hold on to it, even at the cost of shutting out the world. For the afflicted, then, love’s victory is surprising.And Easter should surprise us. Because Easter is just pretty words and empty bubbles of champagne unless we can adjust the way we see the world. The philosopher Simone Weil wrote that ‘love is a direction and not a state of soul.’ Which is to say that no matter the situation, love faces forward towards Easter and not back to good Friday. At the foot of the cross it looks up and sees the power of compassion, and not a humiliation. When we see someone suffering how do we feel, what do we do? Serving someone in need has the order of a sacrament; it is to wash their feet;

In the last month I have seen volunteers I don’t know help local people I don’t know in so far maybe 70 trips to shops and pharmacies. We have clapped for people we know cannot hear us; we have got to know our neighbours and helped, and been helped, as we can. And if we see our own suffering from the perspective of love, it can be transformed into empathy with others and solidarity with Christ, which has the order of prayer.

 I miss our church. I know many of you do. All around it are the memorials of people who lived, worked and died in Putney. Churches are the only buildings where you are physically surrounded by the dead. On tablet and boards, in the rose garden. If we’re still at Good Friday that makes our church a creepy, hellish place to be, reminded of inevitable, lonely suffering. But if we’re looking towards the Easter morning, we see ourselves with our loved ones, our families, and all creation, rejoicing in the love of God.

 Let us put off being grumpy from our aches and pains, our enforced separations; the memory of what we’re missing; let’s have a glass of fizz; and let’s keep looking to Easter and the victory of love. 

 Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.  Alleluiah.