'THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST STILL HAS THE POWER TO CHANGE US AS INDIVIDUALS': THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN'S EASTER SERMON

Delivering his Easter Sunday sermon in Christ Church Cathedral Dublin at the 11.00am Holy Communion service, the archbishop of Dublin emphasized the power of faith and the resurrection to bring about change. He said, “the Resurrection of Jesus Christ still has the power to change us as individuals, and to enable us to make a difference in the world in which we live – because this Living Lord offers himself and his power to those who seek him.”

The archbishop added that through the Resurrection “the way of Jesus was vindicated” adding that the challenges he issued to the society of his own day remain a challenge to the world we live in today. Continuing he will say, “I mention but a few examples of these concerns that Jesus highlighted – he challenged the abuse of power, he emphasized the needs of the weak, the sick and the poor. Jesus placed a special value on children and their protection. He questioned value systems based on strength and success – and pointed to the meek and humble and lowly.”

Closing the archbishop said, “In raising Jesus, God placed unique value on the way and message of Jesus, but he also placed unique value on human life and its potential to share in the very life of God. In Jesus, Risen from the dead, a new way of living, of relating to God and relating to each other is laid open in power.”

Sermon preached on Easter Day, Sunday 23 March 2008, at 11.00am
by the Most Revd Dr John Neill, Archbishop of Dublin
Christ Church Cathedral

“Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died”
I Corinthians 15:20

There are times and events that change everything – the most recent example perhaps being the dramatic events of “Nine Eleven” in New York and Washington D.C. In our own lives, there are key moments and key experiences that can and do change the sort of people that we are. Some are realised at the moment that they occur, others with hindsight.

We are gathered for worship this morning in the place where for very nearly one thousand years, Christians have come together to celebrate the key event for their own lives – the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

It was the Raising of Jesus that turned the small band of disciples that had gathered around him into a body of believers which has now existed for almost two thousand years.

From the very beginning, it was a mystery. A tomb found empty, a stranger in a garden, a fellow-traveller on a journey, appearances in a closed room where frightened and bereaved followers gathered, a stranger on the shore – for one person after another, it all came together – Jesus had been raised.

At Easter, something unique and dramatic happened – not in a great and shattering event such as the horror of Hiroshima or that of Tsunami – but something that gradually came to be seen as so real and so life-changing for so many. The change that came over that terrified group of disciples of the crucified Jesus is a change that has characterised Christian Faith ever since.

It was this message, this assurance of reality, that led the Church outwards in the power of the Holy Spirit so that within a few short years, the Apostle Paul was writing to the Community of believers in the Resurrection in the Greek city of Corinth, hundreds of miles away - “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died”.

In the first instance his words go to the heart of the human predicament – our own mortality, and the fear of what may lie beyond this life, and our concern for those whom we have loved and lost. The apostle reminds his hearers that the Resurrection of Jesus is the sure and certain sign of God’s power over life and death, and that death does not have the last word. The Easter message is that through Christ, we too will be raised.

The Easter Message of the Resurrection is all too easily relegated to the religious sphere and kept there as a comfort for those who are part of the community of faith. The Resurrection is the basis for far more than this. It is about God’s claim over the whole of life – for in Jesus crucified by the powers of this world, God is not marginalised and overcome, for with great power God raises Jesus.

Many a nation in one way or another pays lip-service to the Almighty, but at the very same time manages to squeeze any of the consequences of this into a religious ghetto. It is surely encouraging that a debate is taking place within Europe, and indeed on this island, as to the role of faith communities. It would be very sad if the issues faced are merely those relating to the self-interest, or even the particular interests and identity of those same faith communities. The Resurrection points to God’s power relating to the whole of life.

Jesus was raised. In this mighty event, the way of Jesus was vindicated. There are so many examples of the challenges that he issued to the society of his own day which remain a challenge to the world that we live in today. I mention but a few examples of these concerns that Jesus highlighted – he challenged the abuse of power, he emphasized the needs of the weak, the sick and the poor. Jesus placed a special value on children and their protection. He questioned value systems based on strength and success – and pointed to the meek and humble and lowly.

Many of the casualties of our modern society – casualties often represented by addiction, alienation and suicide – can be the direct result of the failure of all of us to take seriously the implications for living in this world – God’s world – with the values that God has shown to us. We wring our hands in horror at the appalling murder of two young men from Eastern Europe on the streets of the suburbs of this city – and so we should. But have we even begun to wrestle with the breakdown in values, the shattering of community values and family values that underlie so much of the violence in our midst?

The Easter affirmation: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died” is about an event that reaches to the heart of our worship, but which must burst out into the world in which we live.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ still has the power to change us as individuals, and to enable us to make a difference in the world in which we live – because this Living Lord offers himself and his power to those who seek him.

In raising Jesus, God placed unique value on the way and message of Jesus, but he also placed unique value on human life and its potential to share in the very life of God. In Jesus, Risen from the dead, a new way of living, of relating to God and relating to each other is laid open in power.

It is in prayer and worship, in receiving the blessed sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus, that we reaffirm and can experience afresh the reality of Christ alive and present with us and for us. May this be your joy this Easter morning.

- ENDS –