Easter Day Baptism Sermon

ST PETER, MANEY

EASTER DAY 2010

EUCHARIST WITH BAPTISM

10.30 am

‘He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you...that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Luke 24:6f.

On Friday it was dark: today is radiant.  Friday was cold: today is warm. Friday was bitter, today is sweet, with the savour of new life, the risen life of Christ which is also our life.

As a child, I remember being bribed by my mother; bribed into swallowing a spoonful of sour, acrid medicine by the promise of a sweet, pink-filled chocolate.  It took the taste away.

Most of us would like to be given something to take the taste away. Maybe, just now, a spell of deliciously warm weather, long enough for us to forget this endless freeze of a winter?  Or some spiritual chocolate, maybe, to make us forget what we did to someone, or what someone did to us, yesterday, or a lifetime ago.

If you find such a magic chocolate—one better than sheer amnesia—you will doubtless be a popular person. But I must tell you that Easter is not like the magic chocolate.  The glory of Easter is that it holds on to Good Friday. Easter is the day when nothing is forgotten, but everything is set in a new light. That’s why the women, dazed as they stare into an empty tomb, must remember all three parts of the story: that Jesus must be handed over, be crucified and rise again. That’s why, later in the same chapter (v 39) Jesus will tell the disciples, ‘Look at my hands and feet’.  The marks of the nails are not gone, but glorified. Death, said St Paul, is swallowed up in victory—not forgotten, redeemed.

Because Jesus’ resurrection is simply this: the proper outcome  and the vindication of his way of life and death. Once you come to grasp why and how Jesus died, you see that this is not a tacked-on happy ending, or an unexpected turn of events.  The love of the cross is the power that empties the tomb. As Paul put it, Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Now the next bit of my sermon is intended for Gillian, but just in case her attention wanders, would the rest of you mind taking note and telling her later?

Baptism is the resurrection applied to each one of us—that’s why each one gets a candle lit from the Paschal candle. So Baptism comes with the promise of the Kingdom of God stitched into the lining. White Baptism gown, or white baby-grow, no matter, today Gillian is being clothed for eternal life.

But, as she makes her way through all the in-between stages of childhood, youth, adulthood and age, God will keep calling her, guiding and prompting her:   ‘Remember, what I gave you that Easter Day? It was the gift of risen life—long before you knew it And remember how you received it?  By dying with Christ. Maybe the Vicar was a bit of a softie and failed to immerse you completely in the water. But there was no mistaking the meaning. You were introduced to the way of living that gives life, instead of hanging on to it; to head for the goal of life by the way of love. Not just any love, but the love which forgives, which spends itself joyfully, which is filled with compassion and strives or justice. That is the love of the risen Christ: that is the love that conquers that gives its very self away, and in so doing, conquers death.’

Now, all of us. Just let’s exercise our imaginations for a moment.  Let’s imagine that this whole church is one giant font. Its filled with warm water, water which is absolving our soiled selves and cleansing our bitter memories, which is buoying us up and urging us to float and be borne along with fresh energy.

And its true, it isn’t just a pretence. Every Eucharist renews our Baptism; every Eucharist returns us to the pattern of giving self up, joyfully with Christ and rising as His new creation. In every Eucharist the Spirit is deluged upon us—never more clearly than today.  But, O God, help us not to leave it here: Keep us, like water-babies, living in the generous power of the resurrection!