First Mass of Easter
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” One of the most famous opening lines of any political work – Rousseau’s The Social Contract. Perhaps the only more famous opening I quietly paraphrased – mostly to my own amusement – on Palm Sunday from the Communist Manifesto – Not with any political intent but as a reminder that the Gospel is intended to be revolutionary. The manifesto ends deliberately referring to Rousseau: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite.” Both Rousseau and Marx looked at humanity and saw bondage. Like the Hebrews under Egypt. That people weren’t free. And this bondage applies to both rich and poor: Rousseau’s second line: ‘Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.’ All social relations are ties, hold back our God-given freedom. Only the man or woman who has nothing left to lose has freedom; once you have renounced the world, its people and judgements, you are no longer beholden to anyone. But we, functioning members of society, are in everywhere in chains.
If you’ve heard me preach at Christmas, you’ll know that Christmas, for me, is the reminder that the world has meaning. That it’s beautiful and has this delicious core of love at the centre – like a Cadbury’s Cream Egg or a Kinder Surprise. In the beginning was the Word. In his great cosmological vision St John sets out how from the first stroke of creation, at the heart of the singularity that lit the big bang, was a core of love, expanding to 50 billion shades of Love exploding out into the world. In all the magic of midnight mass, in the candles, the liturgy and music, pulses this affirmation of hidden, structural love making the world go round. We’re not remembering Christ’s humble birth this night but there is something of this magic with the primal fire, the darkness and light, the sense of an altered, special time. The divine love here is revealed and hidden, not in a child and a stable, but on a cross and in an empty tomb.
But what is Easter? You might think that Easter is really about eggs and bunnies, or some sort of bargaining done by God and the devil in order to buy our souls; But no. Easter is about freedom. If you didn’t doze off during the vigil you heard a set of stories, all concerning the history of the free person. The creation story tells how we were born free but became everywhere in chains. The stories of the flood and Abraham begin a covenant between humanity and God, transforming a false authoritarian theology, granting us freedom from arbitrary destruction and child sacrifice. The exodus story is The story of political liberation from bondage, whose imagery has dominated all Western ideas of liberty ever since. Jeremiah looks to a time of freedom from the law and external coercion as the law is written in our hearts and sin is no more. The resurrection of the dry bones concerns the restoration of the people of Israel: ‘our hope is lost; we are cut off completely’. And now, ‘This is the paschal night’, the passover, where we are ‘freed from defilement’, we are ransomed, the chains of death are broken; the night has become as clear as the day as ‘the morning star has risen never to set’.
But is this just some sort of church-speak? What does it mean to say that because of Easter we are free? Well, if we have gone through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, we have passed through death. The church is dismantled, we have walked to the cross with Jesus and are now in the tomb. At this hour we are dead men (and women) walking. ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ Only at the point of birth and now death, we have no chains.
This is why at Easter we regain our freedom. We are about to pass from death back into life. We’re at one of those hours – like at Midnight Mass – or when we wake in the magic of the predawn – An hour that for two thousand years has been recognised by half the world or more as the holiest moment of the year, But in the quiet here passes almost unnoticed by our neighbours – Except for the rustling foil of the Easter bunny; It’s a time when anything feels possible. It is the time of freedom to be the person you choose.
So what we might ask ourselves this night is what are those chains which we have burdened ourselves with? Right now you are dead people, free people. When you walk out you will emerge back into life. But the chains that you walk out with are of your own choosing and God wants you to be free.
That is not to say that we should relax into thoughtless selfishness, Just relieved it’s finally Easter and we can gobble chocolate egss. There’s a freedom from here, a freedom from constraint; but also a freedom to – a freedom to be yourself in the image of God – as you were created. The most serious constraints to which we are tied are those that pull us into our anxious selves. The chains of insecurity, which lock our eyes down to our problems, the chains of acquisitiveness and vanity which chain us to objects and appearances, the chains of selfishness and pride which chain us to the relentless drive of our own ego. The chains of addiction that speak for themselves. Freedom means being free with ourselves, to look beyond ourselves and be free-handed with what we have and are. That is the freedom of the resurrection.
So now we are here at the empty tomb, like Mary Magdalene, arriving while it was still dark. For Mary the Easter experience was first of all a liberation from grief; grief that prevents her from seeing what God is doing, from recognising Jesus, and grief that makes her cling to Jesus. Being set free, she is released to be sent to the other disciples as the first person to proclaim the risen Lord.
There are many things we may wish to be set free from this Easter. It may be grief, it may be fear of death for ourselves or another. The wearisome constraints of lockdown. we may need to be set free from self-indulgence in any of its many forms; I didn’t lose quite as much weight as I’d intended and am a bit shocked by my reliance of afternoon tea; Perhaps we need to take a moment to consider our relationships with others and our own sense of self-worth. Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. But tonight you have died with Christ and are risen again, a new creation. You are free to love and be loved should you choose to cast off these chains. ‘But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.’ (1Cor. 15:20) ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’ (2Cor 5.17) ‘I was buried yesterday with thee, O Christ; but today I rise, resurrected with thee. Yesterday I crucified myself with thee, O Savior. Now glorify me with thee in thy kingdom.