I recently had an interesting conversation with my son about the events of Holy Week in which he asked the question, ‘What’s more important, Jesus’s death or his resurrection?’
‘What do you think?’ I asked him. ‘I think Jesus dying is more important because that’s when he really suffered and sacrificed,’ he said. ‘Coming back to life was the easy bit.’
Well, I am not sure how easy coming back to life is! And yet of course both events are equally important – they are the two sides of the same coin which is the complete and beautiful Christian gospel, that Jesus died for our sins and was raised to life, so that those who believe in him will not be condemned but have everlasting joy.
But my son’s words articulate a commonly held under-estimation of the events of Easter Sunday, which can see the resurrection as the ‘icing on the cake’ to the main event of Good Friday. But this is to misunderstand the full extent of what Jesus’s resurrection accomplished, both now and for eternity. Not only is death defeated for humankind once for all and we can be raised to new life in the future, but our whole relationship to God is transformed now.
In John’s gospel account of Mary Magdelene meeting the risen Jesus, he tells her not to cling to him for this reason: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” says Jesus. We see in these words that a new order has been accomplished – his Father has become our Father too. The curtain has been torn in two and the stone has been rolled away – all of us, no matter who we are or what we have done, have access to the Father on the same terms as the son. As Paul tells us in Romans 8, “we have received the spirit of adoption” so we can cry ‘Abba! Father!’, because we are children of God and joint heirs with Christ.
It is wonderful that this Easter Sunday at St Mary’s there will be three people being baptised and renewing their baptismal vows by being fully immersed in water. In doing so they are enacting this incredible truth of the resurrection – for just as the Apostle Paul says: ‘you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.’
We are looking forward to celebrating this public act of faith and hearing the testimonies of God’s goodness. And our prayer is that across both our churches this Easter weekend, we will all be reminded of the promise of risen life and restored relationship with our Father who so dearly loves us.
With many blessings in Christ,
Revd Jemima