20.04.2025
Gospel for Easter Day Offers Hope of Second Chances
Sermon for Easter Day by the Archbishop of Dublin.
“Easter Day is a day of second chances,” Archbishop Michael Jackson contended in his sermon for Easter at the Festal Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin this morning (April 20). The service was sung by the Cathedral Choir and celebrated by the Archbishop as is tradition for Easter.
Archbishop Jackson noted that while the Gospel for Easter Day [St John 20: 1–18] is the same each year as is tradition, each time we read it we can find different things and different perspectives. He offered a perspective of his own on Easter from what the Gospel says.
“My perspective is a simple one: Easter Day is a day of second chances,” he said adding that when viewed like this Easter offered hope in new and different ways.
“Throughout, this account of the resurrection is full of second chances and with people taking those second chances and making them work. Frequently we are accustomed to seeing The Easter Story as one where fear and loss overcome and overwhelm the early disciples; where we have a sense that because they were not expecting Jesus ever to leave them freezes them in both fear and inertia. Behind and within this there is a different story working itself out. There is an invitation to the church of the future, that is the church of today, to plot its course by taking its various chances and to follow through by moving with Mary, John and Peter into a future which we call the Season of Easter. It may take each of us a second time, a second chance, to understand what is happening, what God is doing, but the story tells us that this is nothing about which to be embarrassed in the longer run,” the Archbishop said.
You can read the Archbishop’s sermon in full below.
Sermon by the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson
Easter Sunday, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin April 20th 2025
Gospel: St John 20.1–18
St John 20.10: So the disciples went home again; but Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she peered into the tomb …
The Gospel Reading for Easter Day is rightly the same Gospel Reading as was read and heard in this cathedral church on Easter Day last year. This is our tradition; this is what is handed down to us and by us. It gives us the chance to anticipate and enjoy Easter with a particular delight and fascination by hearing the same account of the foothills and the fulness of resurrection. It is the classic Gospel account of Easter morning that we find in St John 20. Every time we hold it, we find different things, different perspectives coming to meet us from within it. This is because those of us who worship here regularly have had different life experiences in the period in between. This is also because new people year by year choose to mark Easter Day in this cathedral church with us and with the whole Christian church worldwide. Both these experiences change our reaction and our response to the Scriptures as we hear them read and listen to them.
I want to offer you a perspective of my own on Easter itself from what The Gospel for today says in the hope that you might find useful, interesting or helpful. I hope that it may prove to be such as you continue to live in the spirit and in the brightness of Easter throughout the Season now to unfold. Within this timeframe, Jesus continues to offer hope to shattered people and to show, by leadership and by service, a way through impacted situations as he did before his death and resurrection, but now he does it differently because he is risen from the dead.
My perspective is a simple one: Easter Day is a day of second chances …
When viewed like this, The Gospel for Easter Day seems to me to offer hope in new and different ways and to enliven the abstractness and the inaccessibility of The Disciples so often seen as ancient and distant historical figures. It also is able to enliven The Resurrection which is frequently seen as a long–gone historical event that is derided by more people than it is believed by others. A way into seeing the situational normality of something that is problematic and embarrassing for people like us who live in a scientific, technological and convenience age is surely to be welcomed with both hands. In the midst of the widespread and devastated bereavement of the disciples, and in particular of Mary of Magdala, it is good for us to see that time after time each individual and each group gets a second chance. What is more, it is important that we get to the point where we grasp the normality of the risen life in our own lives if we, who are the principal ambassadors of the everyday risen life of Christ Jesus in our generation, are to commend to others the points in their lives where resurrection matters, where it could slip from their hands and where it can make a significant difference and where they too get a second chance.
Let us draw out some of these moments where a second chance is given and taken and then let us move even briefly into the Season of Easter and see the same type of thing happening all over again. We might then rightly live in hope of this happening in our lives and in the lives of others. And this would be a good gift for Easter Day.
Mary came to the tomb and her fright made her run to Simon Peter and to John. Mary’s confusion and need for help gave to the disciples the opportunity to come and to see and to believe – and to go home with an understanding of the direct connection between the scriptures and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Mary’s incomprehension is the catalyst in the two disciples being able to understand what had happened. She deserves to have another chance to understand, and she does get such a chance.
The disciples then went home again, seemingly telling nobody. It is Mary who remained there this time and now stands outside the tomb weeping privately. It is she who moves the story forward. In the world in which we live, very few people listen to women who weep – and men too, if the harrowing pictures we have seen month after month from Gaza are anything by which to go. And it is not confined to Gaza by any means. It is happening right across the world, day and night. Here, something quite different, something quite unexpected comes to pass. Angels, of whom we have heard next to nothing since Christmas, speak and listen to her and the way the story evolves it is like The Annunciation to a different Mary but now it is the annunciation of The Resurrection. It is her uncomprehending honesty that appeals directly to them, in words that we never forget on Easter Morning: They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have laid him. (St John 20.13)
Patient waiting is rewarded. As she turns around, she sees a man whom she eventually understands to be Jesus. But again it is in her mistaking his identity as the gardener that the truth reveals itself when he uses her name. Once again, a main participant in the drama of salvation gets a second chance. Mary continues to make mistakes. She rightly calls him: Rabbuni, which means Teacher, but she wrongly tries to hold on to him. Her mistake is not a cause for Jesus to be angry with her but an opportunity for him to offer an explanation. Once again, she gets a second chance. He says that she must not hold on to him, because he has not yet ascended but that he is in the process of ascending to his Father. This is enough for her to go to tell the disciples that she has seen the Lord.
Throughout, this account of the resurrection is full of second chances and with people taking those second chances and making them work. Frequently we are accustomed to seeing The Easter Story as one where fear and loss overcome and overwhelm the early disciples; where we have a sense that because they were not expecting Jesus ever to leave them freezes them in both fear and inertia. Behind and within this there is a different story working itself out. There is an invitation to the church of the future, that is the church of today, to plot its course by taking its various chances and to follow through by moving with Mary, John and Peter into a future which we call the Season of Easter. It may take each of us a second time, a second chance, to understand what is happening, what God is doing, but the story tells us that this is nothing about which to be embarrassed in the longer run.
We see the opportunity for a second chance in the Return to the Upper Room – the place of betrayal becomes the place of belonging. The disciples find that Jesus comes and stands among them in a way that only they can understand, and he gives them his peace, sends them in the same way as the Father sent him and inspires them with the Holy Spirit. Even Thomas gets a second chance when Jesus returns a week later for him to meet him because he had been absent the week before. Thomas accepts and receives him as his Lord and his God; and goes on, we are told, to be the great missionary of India.
Many of the disciples had been fishermen before they left to follow Jesus. It is not surprizing that they returned to fishing after his death – the place where first they encountered Jesus and left to follow him. Seven of the eleven were by the sea of Tiberias and a stranger gave them advice on where to cast their nets and they could not hold the number of fish they caught. Peter recognized that it was Jesus. Again, there is a second chance for everyone. There is no censure in the heart of Jesus. There simply is the hospitality of the master to his followers yet again. The story does not end there. Jesus speaks directly and personally to Peter and commissions him to do new work; a fisherman becomes a shepherd. Maybe Peter was just too good at being a fisherman and maybe he needed, like many people, to be rescued from his own flawed genius by being given a totally different job to do. The place of need becomes the place of love and commissioning to new and different work: a fisherman is commissioned as a shepherd.
And the journey will keep continuing right the way to Emmaus and beyond where a walk of anger and frustration becomes a walk of friendship and hospitality. Maybe, just maybe, Easter tells us that the second chance awaits us if we can develop the patience to keep going and to keep asking. There is always scope for a second chance.
St John 20.18: Mary of Magdala went to tell the disciples. ‘I have seen the Lord!’ she said, and gave them his message. Perhaps for us Mary is the Patron Saint of Second Chances on this Easter Day.