The Dawn of a New Day.

I'd thought I'd lost this sermon with the great laptop crash earlier this year. However, I'm pleased to have found this, my first Easter Day Sermon, in a box of papers. I enjoyed preaching it, I hope you enjoy it.

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul's Church, Swanscombe on Easter Sunday 27th March 2005, bast on St John xx.1-18

It may be still dark,
but can you at least hear him running?

Four o'clock in the morning,
and he is running,
faster, ever faster into the darkness,
heart rattling like a pneumatic drill,
lungs burning,
gasping for breath.

This young man has easily overtaken his friend,
leaving poor flabby old Peter
wheezing and puffing somewhere behind him
in the gloom of the night.

He has to see this for himself.

Can it possibly be true?

The horrible events of the weekend
are carved into his brain:
betrayal and taunts,
whips and thorns,
cross and blood,
tears and death.

Only a few moments ago,
he was overwhelmed by misery like the others,
and then that terrible report
from Mary Magdalene,
Mary,
the woman that the world once called mad.

Her words.
"He's not there!
They've taken Him away!"

[PAUSE]

It is still dark,
the dying night still turns rocks and trees
into phantoms on the landscape
yearning for the morning.

The wind whistles through his hair;
his sweat blinds him as he runs,
confuzed,
dazed.

"Why?
Why have they taken Him?"

"What more can they do to Him?"

[PAUSE]

The tomb is in sight,
just a cave in the bleak landscape.

The rock that formed the door lies to one side,
thrown out of its groove,
making a new home for itself
among the other rocks.

He sees the dark opening,
and finally he lets his pace drop.

With chest heaving,
he pauses at the entrance,
stoops down and looks into the tomb.

But he doesn't go in .

John,
the disciple whom Jesus loved,
the one who reclined next to Jesus three nights ago,
the one who has raced so fast to get here
to find out what has happened,
stops.

He glances inside only for a second,
but stays exactly where he is.

All Creation screams at him, "Why?"

"Why haven't you gone in?"

Why, John, have you raced all that way
why have you nearly done yourself a mischief
running so hard,
and do not see what you've come to see?

Do you know why he's stopped?

[PAUSE]

He's the first to look into the tomb.

Mary saw the stone rolled away:
that was enough to send her skittering away in panic
back to the others.

He can see the linen cloths,
but that doesn't answer our question.

Why, John, have you not gone in?

What if it's a plot by Scribes and Pharisees
to winkle out those nuisance followers
of the One who called himself a king?

Yes, they're in there now,
hiding behind the door,
ready to leap out.

There!

Didn't that cloth move?

Caiaphas the High Priest
is hiding underneath,
isn't he?

If John goes in,
he'll be nailed to a cross himself,
won't he?

[PAUSE]

Well, if they were going to jump out
then they'd have done so by now,
wouldn't they?

Besides, that cloth is only moving
in the early morning breeze.

What if they've done something nasty to Him?

Let's not think about that.

They hated Him
surely crucifying Him was enough!

Surely
they got all their hatred out of their system
jeering at Him,
mocking Him,
and laughing at His pain.

What if there's a thief in there?

What if there's a madman inthere,
or a murderer,
or a ghost?

What if...

WATCH OUT!

Step back!

Peter is barging past John,
straight into the tomb,
no messing about.

There's nothing in here;
it's empty.

All that fuss and it's empty!

Just a cave in a rock
with some strips of cloth lying about.

He is not here.

Surely Peter,
you must remember what He said to you.

Have you forgotten that
He said He would die and be raised again
on the third day?

Have you forgotten
how you told Him off for saying such horrible things,
and how He shut you up in no uncertain terms?

But no,
Peter's mind is clouded with guilt,
and the rocky walls of the tomb
taunt him with the phrase:
"Oh no! You never knew the man!"

Can you still hear Peter's denials
echoing in this chamber?

[PAUSE]

John joins him,
and finally,
finally believes Mary's story.

Mary was right.

The mad woman speaks
the sanest sanity of them all.

The tomb is empty,
except for a thousand bad memories
and a thousand fears
that hide in the shadows.

Peter and John leave,
their world spinning around them,
tormented by guilt and fear,
and now confusion
and half-remembering,
back to the other disciples.

"What do we tell them, Peter?"

"That He's gone, they've taken Him away!"

"But Peter, isn't it strange
that someone would steal His body,
but take the trouble to fold up the napkin
that was on His head
and place it somewhere else in the tomb?"

As you walk with them,
what do you say to them?

Back they go to join the others,
their guilt and fear going with them.

Watch them go into the darkness,
though isn't it a little lighter now?

[PAUSE]

And then there's Mary.

A long weekend made longer
her heart as dark as the sky on that Good Friday,
the meaning of her life destroyed.

Her eyes have not been a stranger
to tears in the past few days,
and this is more than her heart can bear.

She falls to her knees
and that loving heart of hers breaks.

What could you say to her that would make a difference,
that would stop those agonised tears?

She cries so hard
that she almost misses the angels
sitting patiently in the tomb.

"Madam, why are you weeping?"

She cries so hard that she thinks
she sees the gardener
but her tears blur the man's face,
her sobs his voice.

"Oh sir,
if you don't want His body,
let me take it away out of your hands
so that it doesn't bother you any more."

It is just one word that changes everything,
simply her name being called.

But that voice that speaks that one word
is the voice that dries tears,
the voice that dispels fear,
the voice that alleviates guilt,
the voice that she has loved
since it cast away
the darkness of her mind.

"Oh, my Master!"

[PAUSE]

It is no longer dark;
the brilliant flash of the new day's Sun
sheds its light on the garden,
and the previous days' events
can be seen for what they are.

Their shadows melt in the cool rays of morning,
as we watch Mary skittering out of the garden again
with a wonderful story to tell.

Here is Jerusalem at dawn
on the first day of the week,
the tomb just a hole in the rock,
the cross just a lump of bloodstained wood,
the Scribes and the Pharisees just men asleep in bed,
in the darkness of their hearts.

A walk to Emmaus begins
disciples gather in a locked room
a new life for Humanity dawns.

A new day!

[PAUSE]

This is the day that the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.