Easter Sunday 2021

 

Easter Day 2021

Lectionary readings: Acts 10:34-43 and John 20:1-18

Happy Easter! The great celebration of the Church, and chocolatiers. But what is it all about!? In our reading from John’s Gospel, we heard that Peter believed (pisteuó) but did not yet understand (eidó). That is, on the evidence he saw when he entered the tomb, he was persuaded that Jesus’ body had not been removed by grave-robbers but had, in fact, risen from the dead; but he did not yet appreciate the significance. Perhaps you can relate to that?

I want to suggest that Easter is an invitation to us to enter more fully into the life, death, and resurrection-life of Jesus. That, whether this is your first Easter or your ninety-first, the invitation of this great celebration is to be drawn ever deeper into Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, into participation in the mystery of divine love. And I want to illustrate this from our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the account of the growth and spread of the early Church.

In our reading, we met Peter, again, and Cornelius. Cornelius was from Italy, a centurion in the Roman army, based at the headquarters of the Roman province of Judea; and his household will become the first gentiles (that is, not Jews) to be baptised in the name of Jesus—to symbolically be joined with Jesus in his dying and rising to new life.

Cornelius had had a vision of an angel, a messenger from God, telling him to summon Peter, and listen to what he had to say. When Cornelius invites Peter to address his household, Peter presents a summary of Jesus, as one anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power, who came to the people of Israel preaching peace; and went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. This was, however, too much for the people to bear, and so they had him put to death. And yet, the story does not end there: for God raised him on the third day, ordaining him judge of the living and the dead, and appointing Peter to testify to this.

Now, here’s the thing: how did Peter testify to this? Not only by words, but by doing the things that Jesus had done. In these early chapters of Acts, we see Peter and the other disciples anointed with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2). We see Peter, as one of ‘the twelve,’ preaching (establishing) peace between the Hebrews and the Hellenists: that is, finding a solution that addressed the tension between members of the church from a Jewish background that kept themselves as distinct as possible from the Greco-Roman culture of their occupiers, and those from a contrasting Jewish background that embraced whatever of Greek culture was not explicitly opposed to their faith (Acts 6:1-7). We see Peter going about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 3:1-10, 9:32-42).

Peter has been drawn into participation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He is about to be drawn even deeper. And, in the end, he too, like Jesus, will be put to death for this.

But there is more. Now, we are introduced to Cornelius. Cornelius is not yet a believer in Jesus, and yet he is already someone who is participating in Jesus, and who is about to be drawn deeper into that life. Cornelius is a Roman centurion, one who upholds the Pax Romana, the peace imposed with violence; and yet, despite who he is and the geo-political-economic structures he is complicit in, he is genuinely concerned for the welfare of the local people. Preaching peace, as not merely the absence of war but the presence of the necessary conditions for human flourishing. Moreover, he is one who goes about doing good, generously funding the needs of the Jewish community. He takes the initiative to set aside the divisions between gentile and Jew, us and them, oppressor and oppressed, seeking to establish a new humanity. And he has been chosen by God to receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Though this is the event by which the Church is opened up to embrace gentiles as well as Jews, we do not hear anything else about Cornelius in the account recorded in Acts. But tradition passes down testimony that he left the Roman army, but chose not to return to Italy; that he was appointed by Peter as the second bishop of Caesarea—the very community where he had come to faith, succeeding Zacchaeus the former tax-collector in office—and served as a bishop there and later in the region of Troas until old age, when he, like Peter, was martyred.

Jesus, Peter, Cornelius. Peter believed before he understood. Cornelius understood, before he believed. And what of you, this Easter? Is God calling you, with Peter, to testify to the kingdom reign of God in the world, exercised through Jesus, in whom is found reconciliation with God and neighbour? Or is God calling you, with Cornelius, to covenant relationship, to find your place in God’s family, the Church?

Having focused on the reading from Acts, I want to close by returning to the Gospel reading, and to Mary Magdalene. Jesus appears to her, and is made known to her when he calls her by name, “Mary!” Easter is not about answers to all our questions, but Love’s response to the longing of our heart:

for a community, like Cornelius (‘my Father and your Father’)

or a cause, like Peter (‘my God and your God’)

or simply, with Mary, to be able to declare, “I have seen the Lord”.

This Easter, may you also see Jesus, the Lord. May you hear him call you by name. And may that experience be both reassuringly familiar, and transform everything, for the rest of your days. Amen.