12th April 2026
Resurrection People
Because I shall be away when this edition of News & Notices comes out, I'm writing this on the evening of Holy Saturday. It's been a full and difficult Holy Week, I'm tired and battling a cold. If I'm brutally honest, I'm not (yet!) feeling the Resurrection. (I was telling God about this as I walked to the station earlier; he said, as he's been saying consistently throughout this week "My grace is sufficient for you." It has been!)
I say this, not as a bid for sympathy - when you read this, I should be relaxing somewhere in Barcelona - but because it's caused me to reflect on the mystery of the Resurrection in a different way. On that Sabbath between Jesus' death on the cross and the miracle of the empty tomb, behind the locked doors of the upper room, there can have been nothing but grief, desolation, guilt, despair. And, in the world outside, the violent rule of Rome continued unabated in Judea. The religious leaders continued their fearful plotting against Jesus and his followers, placing an armed guard at the tomb lest the disciples should steal the body. People continued to eke out a fragile living under heavy burdens of taxation.
On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, the women got up, took their spices, and went to the tomb. They were still grieving, still desolate. Their hopes and dreams had still come to nothing. And yet, they went. They made a risky journey to the garden outside the city, ready to face the armed guard, ready to ask, to beg, perhaps to bribe them to help roll away the heavy stone, just so they could be near to the Lord they loved, just so they could perform a final act of care and love to his torn and wounded body. They had nothing to gain, nothing to hope for - but they went. And discovered that, in the darkness of night, something astounding, something world-changing had happened.
The Resurrection is the foundation of our Christian faith. "If Christ has not been raised," Paul would say to the church in Corinth a few years afterwards, "your faith is useless; you are still in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15 v 17). The Resurrection is real, not because I feel it, but because God did it. The Resurrection came first to people who were exhausted, grieving, desolate, full of guilt, people who had lost all hope. The Resurrection came first into a world as full of confusion and violence and division as the world in which we live. The Resurrection says that, although griefs, sorrows and hardships will continue as long as this world lasts, they don't need to define us, because Jesus has conquered death and everything is now different. Because of the truth of the Resurrection, whatever our circumstances, and however we feel, we can trust that God's grace is sufficient to help us meet the challenges that each day brings.
It took a while for the reality of the Resurrection to sink in for the first disciples. It can take a while for us too. So from now until Pentecost, we will be thinking in our 10.30am services and in our home groups about what it means to be Resurrection People - people defined not by our feelings, our circumstances and our struggles, but by the grace of God who raised Jesus from the dead.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
