Have you noticed how many different sorts of Easter egg there, there seem to be dozens.
Mars bar eggs, Smartie eggs, Toblerone eggs, Thornton's eggs, Nestle eggs, Cadbury cream eggs, Kitkat eggs, Cadbury's flake eggs, mini eggs - to name just a few I've seen.
Everybody's desperate to get in on the act, all the manufactures of chocolate want to create their own version of the Easter egg - why ? because there's money in it.
And there's money in it because, lets face it, they taste good !
[Starts eating Easter egg] I'm right - they do taste very nice !
Who would like to share a bit of my Easter egg ?
Sadly - there's not really enough to go around, but we'll have another look at that problem in a few minutes.
Now I know there are some folk here this morning who really don't like chocolate, so I've brought you your own egg.
How many different sorts of these eggs are there ?
Thousands I guess, chicken eggs, duck eggs, ostrich eggs, robin eggs, thrush eggs, crocodile eggs, frogs spawn !
Anyway, I've brought you your own egg - who would like it ? [ throws "blown" egg to someone in congregation]
So many different sorts of eggs, but in one sense they're all the same - they're all concerned with the possibility of life. They may be different shapes and sizes, and the chocolate ones may only be copies of the real thing, but either way they all have to do with the hope of new life, a fresh start, a new creation.
I like St Matthew's account of the resurrection for various reasons, but one I want to share with you this morning, is the appearance of the Angel.
Only in Matthew's gospel does the angel actually make an entrance - in the other gospels the angel is already there, we know not how, but in Matthew's gospel the angel descends from heaven, causes an earthquake, rolls the stone away from the entrance of the tomb and promptly sits on it !
When the two Mary's arrive at the tomb they find the guards in a dead-feint, the tomb open and empty, and the angel sitting on the door-stone as if it's all in a days work !
In my minds eye I see the angel with his arms crossed, wings folded neatly back, and kicking his legs to and fro, like a schoolgirl on a park-bench.
"What's all the fuss"? he says, "Why are you so shocked and surprised. Didn't Jesus tell you that this was going to happen ? Didn't he let you know that on the third day, which is today, he would no longer be in the tomb because he has risen from the dead? Don't be afraid, believe !"
Let me tell you why we shouldn't be so surprised at the resurrection. Let me tell you why it's more unlikely that the tomb would still be closed and Jesus' body still be inside.
I should let you know at this point that I'm indebted to St Augustine for this revelation, and I hope he'll forgive my rather simplified and clumsy version of what he wrote so beautifully in one of his sermons.
First of all, let us consider God. The Judeao-Christian faith has always understood God to be immortal, that God is the source of all life, that God is life in its purest form, and that life is eternal, beyond time and space, mortality and death.
God cannot die, if he could die, he would not be God.
God is eternal life.
Now let us consider our own state. We are mortal, we have life in us, which is mysterious, but we know that it's finite - that eventually, one way or another it ends.
Unlike God, we are not immortal.
Now, if God deemed it necessary that He should die in order that humans might fully share in his eternal life, a life which has conquered human sin and death, how could he do it? How can God, the immortal, die to save man, the mortal ?
The answer - God must be made man. The Word must be made flesh and dwell among us and be subject to all that we as humans are subject to.
And so the Word really did become flesh, God-with-us was en-fleshed in Mary's womb, was born, lived among us, and was just like one of us, except for sin, which from the outset never had a hold on him.
Therefore in Christ, all was now ready for what St Augustine called "a most wonderful transaction".
For in ourselves as humans we did not have the ability to live, and God in his immortality did not have the ability to die, but through Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected, a very beautiful thing happened.
Through our mutual sharing in Christ, God died from what was our nature, and we live from what is his !
He takes on our death, and exchanges it for his life. What a beautiful and amazing exchange !
So you see, although the exchange is amazing, we shouldn't really be surprised that the tomb is empty. If Christ was only a son of man, and not also the Son of God, we should be unsurprised at finding the tomb closed and Jesus still inside.
But if Jesus is both a son of man, and The Son of God, then we should also be unsurprised that after dying his human death, Christ rose to live his eternal life and the tomb is empty.
God cannot be contained in a tomb. And the angel knew that, and so he sat on the stone that was once a door to a tomb, and swung his legs and said ; "I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He's not here, for he has risen, just as he said".
I had the privilege of speaking to someone recently who knew very little about the Christian faith but who was mourning the death of a loved one. This person knew that Jesus had risen from the dead, but didn't know about the "wonderful transaction".
For him, the resurrection proved Jesus was a holy man, but what was that to him as he mourned the death of a loved one ?
He didn't know that because Jesus rose from the dead and took up his eternal life, we too can share in his resurrection - in fact that's the point of it - the point of the resurrection is that human kind can share in it too.
It's for us !
Unlike the eggs we spoke of earlier that contain within each of them the possibility of individual life, but life which is finite and cannot be given away to others, the life of God is made available for anyone who comes to him through Christ, "in him is life" says St John in his gospel, and that life is the life of God - eternal life.
St Augustine goes on to say that we shouldn't be timid about proclaiming our faith in the resurrected Christ, but that "we must have the fullest trust in it".
And I agree.
The reason we're all here this morning is that the resurrection happened, the reason 60 million Christians celebrate Easter and have faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God, is because the resurrection happened.
The reason 60 times 60 million Christians have lived and died in faith these past 2000 years is because the resurrection happened. And it happened for one reason and one reason only, to show to all humankind that sin and death is not what humanity is made for, but eternal life with God, if only you would believe.
Through Jeremiah, God said "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness. I will build you up again, and you will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful".
So on this wonderful day, Easter day, when we celebrate the unsurprising fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that the tomb is empty, and that he has risen to an eternal life which he offers to all those who believe in Him - let's celebrate and sing !
When the Spirit of the Lord is within my heart I will sing as David sang
When the Spirit of the Lord is within my heart I will sing as David sang
I will sing, I will sing, I will sing as David sang
I will sing, I will sing, I will sing as David sang
Sings 4 verses with "sing"/"clap" / "dance" / "praise".
[From the song: "When the Spirit of the Lord": author unknown.]
Ian Spencer
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