Mrs. Hogan came to see me one night about two weeks after her husband’s funeral.
She had a question. “Where is Richard now?”, she asked me.
She went on tho explain that, when she went to visit the grave, she knew his body was there, “but that was not him”.
I suppose she was rebelling against the reality of death, which separates the soul from the body to which it naturally belongs.
We don’t know what was going through the minds of the two Mary’s as they made their way to the tomb of Jesus early that Sunday morning. That had seen Jesus die, and there was no doubt about his death. Now, coming to anoint his body, was the only way they knew to be close to him.
But they found the stone rolled back and the body gone. There are no witnesses to what happened during the hours of darkness, other than an angel who tells them “He is not here. He is risen as he said, and he has gone before you into Galilee.”
St. Matthew tells us very simply about how Jesus appeared to the women on their way back to Jerusalem, and they took hold of his feet. He told them not to be afraid.
Some of the other evangelists go into greater detail and, while it was clear from all the accounts that this was the same Jesus they had known and loved, he was different in some way, so that they didn’t immediately recognise him. Mary of Magdala didn’t know him until he spoke her name.
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus only recognised him when he sat at table with them.
So what did happen between Friday and Sunday? I think it might be helpful if we remember the final moments of Jesus’ earthly life.
The Gospel tells us that: “breathing his last, he gave up the spirit”. He was a dead as anybody in Sligo Cemetery. The only difference was that, in the case of Jesus, the spirit that he gave up was not just a human soul, it was the Holy Spirit.
Sometime early on Sunday morning that same Spirit, which is the power of God and which never died, was powerfully reunited with the dead body of Jesus, and he was raised to life. He was not just raised like Lazarus, back to the way he was before; He was raised up in glory.
The physical body was transformed into a spiritual body, which was no longer limited by the laws of science, but which He could, and did, allow people to see with their human eyes, when he chose to do so.
Everything we are as Christians depends on the fact that Jesus died and is risen. St Paul wrote to the people of Corinth “if Christ is not risen, your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).
The Resurrection speaks powerfully about the Father’s faithful love for Jesus, but it was not just something God the Father did for Jesus. St. Paul tells us: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also”.
The first Christians believed the evidence of the two women and of the Apostles, that Jesus had risen, but they found it difficult to see how this might also apply to them.
The people of Corinth wanted to know “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” Perhaps we struggle with that too. We wonder how we will look, whether our arthritis will be gone and, of course, whether we will recognise one another.
St. Paul clearly believed that there would be a Resurrection of the body at the end of time, when “what is buried in weakness will rise up in power”(1 Cor 15). This is what Christians have professed in the Creed, week after week, since the Council of Jerusalem in 50 AD. “We believe in the Resurrection of the Body and life ever lasting”.
But St. Paul, while sharing that faith, recognised that we do not need to wait until the last day to share in the risen life of Jesus. Christians, in whom the Spirit of Jesus lives, through Baptism, are already living the new life of the Resurrection.
Let me try to unpack that for you by taking a quick look at the other readings we have heard this evening.
The Book of Genesis speaks to us of the creation of the universe, and the formation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God. Woman and man were created for relationship with one another and ultimately for relationship with God.
As we read on in the Book of Genesis, we hear how that likeness with God is obscured by sin. Paradise becomes a “valley of tears”, because humanity chose not to live according the God’s plan.
If we go then to the Reading from the Book of Exodus, the story begins with the Hebrew people living as slaves under an oppressive regime in Egypt. Slavery, even today, is one of the fruits of a sinful and disordered world.
But God has compassion on his people and, through Moses, he leads them into freedom, teaching them humility, and making a new Covenant with them in the wilderness. As a mark of his love he gives them commandments, as wisdom for their lives.
When we get to the prophet Isaiah, we find that the people have not been faithful to the Covenant, and they are called back into right relationship with God. Water is a symbol of life, and they are invited to “come to the water” and to drink freely of it.
“Pay attention, come to me; listen and your soul will live.” That passage from Isaiah ends with a proclamation of the power of God’s Word which “does not return empty” but carries out God’s will and succeeds in what it was sent to do.
There were Holy people in Old Testament times but, in order to undo the damage caused by sin, humanity needed a Saviour who was completely above sin. We see this in Jesus, who is “the Word made flesh” or, as St. Paul describes him “the image of the invisible God and the perfect copy of his nature”.
The whole life of Jesus, culminating in his death on the cross, is a perfect response to God’s love.
This is where our New Testament reading from the Letter to the Romans comes in. Already, by the time Paul was writing, the liturgy of Baptism was well established as the first stage of Christianity Initiation.
It was the gateway to all the Sacraments. The normal practice was that the person being Baptised was lowered fully into the water, and then lifted up again, as a Christian.
In our reading today, St. Paul sees this as a symbol of dying and rising, and explains that, in Baptism, we die to the old self, and rise with the new life of God.
This leads him to say: “If in union with Christ, we have imitated his death, we shall also imitate him in his Resurrection”.
Just as Christ died and rose, and can never die again, so we must think of ourselves as “dead to sin, but alive for God in Christ Jesus”.
So dear bothers, we who are already Baptised, and you who will be Baptised on this Holy night, this is both our vocation and our mission, to live in Jesus.
In the future, some day, we will die and our bodies will lie in the grave, but only until our spiritual souls, united with his Spirit, are reunited with our bodies and raised up in glory.
In the meantime, just as Jesus laid down his life every day in prayer and service, so we are called to die to self and to live in Christ each day of our lives.
In that, we will be strengthened by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which we receive in Confirmation, and nourished by the Eucharist, which some of you will receive for the first time tonight.
In that Eucharist we are drawn into communion with Christ and with one another, as members of his body.
I finish with a Collect prayer which comes from the Mass of Christmas Day and, in a sense, makes the connection for us between the human birth of Jesus with the new life of the Resurrection, in which we all share.
O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature
and still more wonderfully restored it,
grant, we pray,
that we may share in the divinity of Christ,
who humbled himself to share in our humanity.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.