I have tried to follow his example in my own sermons for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. I have tried to touch the love in the midst of the passion of Jesus Christ. In the same way, today, when we celebrate the Resurrection, what we really celebrate and proclaim is God's love and God's passion; God's passionate concern for humanity.
And passion is something we tend to steer away from. Strong emotions can be untidy, irrational and scary. In the old movie, Moonstruck, one of the characters says, "Love doesn't make things nice, it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. We're here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts, and to love the wrong people, and die."
That's what God's love is like. It is a passionate love which does not do what we expect. When we read the stories of Scripture we find God's love is passionate, strong and wasteful. Salvation history is messy. God loves the wrong people; like a boat builder called Noah, or a desert wanderer called Abraham, or a mob of Egyptian slaves called the Israelites, or a wild warrior woman named Deborah, and the prostitute named Rahab, who ended up in the genealogy of Jesus. God loves the wrong people, and God's heart breaks every time the people wander away. But God's love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and never ends. God still calls us in the night; God still pursues us through our lives; God still loves.
And God comes to us, as God's beloved (Jesus, whom we call Immanuel--God with us). And even here, even coming to us, even in Immanuel, God doesn't make things nice. God doesn't make things perfect, at least the way we think of perfection. God doesn't take away death. God doesn't fix the world. Instead, God joins us. God is so passionate about us that God joins us in birth, in life, and in death.
We might like God to take away all wars and killing and murder. We might like God to take away death and make the world a nicer place to live in. We might like God to keep everything calm and cool and peaceful. But no, instead God loves us, even to death on the cross and joins us in our pain and death. And, scandal of all scandals, God even enrols us in this mad, passionate, wasteful love for humanity. We're asked to love as God loves; to risk as God risks; to be the way that God comes to others in love. We're asked to embody God's love, to give up safety and security and seemliness in favour of witness and service and evangelism. We're asked to embrace the things that act out God's passion for humanity.
God says, "Be my love. Incarnate, that is, give a body to, my love for everyone whom you meet. Love passionately, excessively, wastefully. You will weep as I have wept, your heart will break as mine breaks, if you love others as I have loved you. Ruin everything and die for love. Have courage. Risk love and remember that I will raise you up at the last."
But how will we have the courage to live like this? How will we dare to take the risks involved? The answer is what we are celebrating today. On this day, when most people are at home or at the Show or doing something else, we are here to celebrate the Resurrection, which is what makes our life in Christ possible.
Again, how is it so?
Resurrection is not a reward for good behaviour - it would be absurd to say that Jesus was raised from the tomb because he had been a good boy and died on the cross. Resurrection is the assurance that love never ends, resurrection tells us that the abundant life Jesus promised really is ours.
Resurrection is the promise of heaven, of life and of love. Resurrection is an invitation to spend your life passionately for other people; to love others as God has loved you; to know that God's account for loving is never overdrawn.
The Resurrection is both a promise of heaven and a present reality about life and love. If we live, if we love; as Christ lived and loved, then God will honour our life and love. We can risk breaking our hearts and loving the wrong people, serving and witnessing, loving justice and mercy. We can take these risks because we know the Resurrection is ours now, not some time in the future, but right now, today. God honours life and gives it as a gift again and again.
Today I have tried to take hold of the Resurrection, not with the brain, but with the heart, not with thoughts, but with feelings. In this way resurrection stops being the goal of our faith and becomes instead a way of living and of serving God. For the Church it becomes an approach to ministry, and ministry stops being a duty and becomes a passion.
May it be so for all of us, this day and always. Amen.