This sermon was preached on Sunday 7th April 2024 at All Saints Church, Oakham.
Readings: 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-end
It’s so good to be together on this sunny Sunday morning. I can scarcely believe that it was Easter Sunday 7 days ago. It feels like a lifetime ago. Does anyone else feel that, or is it just me? Last we celebrated the greatest news in history, and not just Christian history, but all history. Jesus was no longer dead, he is alive, he is risen. Alleluia.
Jesus’ resurrection was more than just a miracle of coming back to life from the dead, but Jesus’ resurrection was him overcoming the power of sin and death on our lives. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we need not find ourselves caught in our sin and wrongdoing, which becomes death to us, but instead, we share in new, eternal life with God. All our shame, our worries, and our sins have been washed clean by Jesus. Death has no claim on our lives. We are made alive in Jesus. Alleluia.
So, what next? Jesus is alive, he is risen. We celebrate and shout Alleluia, but what happens next? A week on after Easter, what is that we are supposed to do now?
I think it is worth us taking a look at our letter from John. He says that he and his fellow Christians declare what they have heard, and seen with their own eyes, and what they have looked at and touched with their own hands.[1] In response to Jesus’ resurrection, the early Christians went and told others about what they had seen and heard. In some respect, this is quite normal in conversation, where we share what we have seen and heard across the day. It’s quite normal. But specifically, John says that the early Christians share what they have seen and heard so that others may also have fellowship with them. They want them to know this good news that they have discovered. It’s perfectly natural. We all want to share good news with others.
Think about falling in love with someone. I know many of you here may testify to this. I know that we have couples soon to be married sitting here in the congregation today. When you fall in love, it is exciting and you want to tell your family, your friends and the postman that you are in love and that you are happy. It’s good news and you want to share it. When a couple gets engaged, they don’t keep the news to themselves, but instead, they share it. They are so happy and are bursting to share their good news. They will tell anyone and everyone because it is good news and it longs to be shared. Conversely, we are usually quite slow to share bad news. If we lose our job, we might not rush out to tell all our friends and family.
Not only does good news long to be shared, but the joy of good news is only complete when it is shared. A big part of the joy of a couple getting engaged is that they get to share it with others. If they kept the engagement to themselves, it feels as though something is missing and lacking from the engagement. John says, ‘We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.’[2] Our joy of the good news, the gospel, the joy of our faith is only complete when it is shared. A faith that is held within and kept secret is not a faith that is allowed to fully work itself in our hearts. When our faith does work itself in our hearts, we cannot help but tell others and share the good news of our faith. It’s one of those ‘what else can I do’ situations where the excitement we feel about faith and the gospel can only find peace and satisfaction in being shared. If we keep our faith in darkness, then we are not sharing in true fellowship with God. Because God is the light, and when he is with us and within us, his light shines out through us. So as Christians, witnesses to what we have seen and heard of Jesus Christ in our lives and in this world, we share this light that has been given to us. Then our joy is complete as we share this good news with others. This is what we do as Jesus’ Easter people.
This is great. But I know that for some of you, when I say this, you start to panic inside. You might feel that you struggle to talk to your friends and family about your faith. You think, ‘How can I say the right things, or how can I explain things in the right way?’ These are valid questions but when we look at how the gospel was shared in the New Testament, these were the first port of call in how people came to know the good news of Jesus’ resurrection.
When Mary Magdalene first saw the risen Jesus, she went to the disciples and gave them a three hour theological deep dive on how Jesus rose from the dead, its soteriological implications, and its rooting in Biblical prophecy…. No, she didn’t do that. She went to the disciples and said, ‘I have seen the Lord.’[3] That was it. Mary shares the good news of Jesus being alive by simply telling the disciples what she had seen and heard, sharing her own experiences. And this is powerful stuff. If you look at how all the disciples come to know about the risen Jesus it is through hearing the witness of Mary, and also from seeing Jesus with their own eyes. And it is this witness, this shared story of what they have seen and heard and experienced, which is the primary way in which we share the good news of Jesus. We share what we have seen or heard, and that is how we share the good news of Jesus being alive.
The disciple Thomas exemplifies the idea of seeing is believing. But my question for you today is what have you seen of Jesus, and what does it lead you to believe? Does the Easter story lead you to believe that this is the greatest news in the whole world, the good news that is bursting to be shared with everyone? What have you seen and heard of Jesus? We can think of our own experiences of God and Jesus in our lives, and we can also think of the experiences of God we have heard about in the lives of others. What do they lead you to believe? Does it lead you to know the greatest good news in the whole of history? If so, there is only one thing you can do with news that is good. Share it. Share the good news that you have seen and heard that Jesus is alive, he is risen. And in his death and resurrection, all our sin and shame have been taken away, and we are given the eternal life and joy of God to share with him for all eternity. This is good news. Share it.
Amen.
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[1] 1 John 1:1.
[2] 1 John 1:4 [NRSV].
[3] John 20:18 [NIV].
Shakeel Nurmahi 