EASTER DAY, HIGH MASS AND HOLY BAPTISM, Year C: April 4 2010

Preacher: Fr Andrew Greany

This morning, Ricardo and Karen are bringing Gabriella to the place of Jesus' burial; and we've been invited as well, to the tomb. Does that sound rather startling? Well, it should! Mary Magdalen, we've just heard in St John's Gospel, went to the tomb of Jesus, and found the stone rolled away — and her reaction was surely one of shock and bewilderment. She ran off, she ran and fetched Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved. 'Peter, John, come quickly ...' 'whatever has happened?' And we're being summoned this morning; what is this? The place of a dead man's burial where something startling, unbelievable, has taken place. Yes indeed, the font is the place of death by drowning, submersion in the waters of death. It presents us with the tomb, the resting-place of Jesus. And what we're going to do, symbolically, is to put Gabriella in it; and all of us who've been baptized, we're going to recall that we've been drowned there too. We're going to put ourselves, we might say, back at the moment when we were about to be plunged into the waters of the death of Jesus — the moment which we recall whenever we renew our baptismal vows — every time, even, when we sign ourselves with the cross in baptismal water as we come into church.

So what's our reaction? It might help to look for a moment at the reaction of Peter and John, when Mary Magdalen brought them to the tomb of Jesus. One disciple ran faster than the other, and reached the tomb first; but he didn't go in. Peter didn't run so fast, but he was bolder when he reached the tomb. He went in. Yet it was the other, the one who'd hesitated when he first arrived, who, when he did go in, saw and believed. He is, in John's Gospel, the first to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead — and he believed even though, at that point, he hadn't reflected on the scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, and discerned in them a foretelling of the resurrection of the Christ; a text, for example, such as Ps 118: 'I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord'; or Hosea 6.1-2: 'The Lord has stricken us, and He will bind us up; after two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up.'

So what about us? Well, maybe we're like Peter, labouring along in the wake of someone else; probably a bit uneasy about all this, because we know that we've denied Jesus, turned our back on Him, for one reason or another: maybe our family, our colleagues, our contemporaries, are just a bit scornful, bemused, uninterested, in the things concerning Jesus. So it's easier to say we don't know Him. But this morning, or at Christmas, we come along, out of breath, somewhat unfit, in the wake of those who are, it seems, a bit more enthusiastic. Or maybe we're like the beloved disciple, excited, keen to answer the strange summons — but at the last minute, we hesitate. We've been convinced that Jesus loved us; we've lain close to Him, if you like, as it says of this disciple in John's Gospel.

But what's happened? He's died, been buried; so have we been deluding ourselves? Perhaps this is why we don't, immediately, plunge into the darkness of the tomb: it would be too unlike the warmth that was offered by a living friend. And then it's Peter, bringing up the rear, who plunges in; he doesn't yet believe or understand; that will come later, when Jesus addresses the question personally to him: 'Do you love me?' But Peter's uncomprehending bravery is enough to reignite the faith of the beloved disciple; he hasn't reflected sufficiently as yet on the scriptures — and that's true of most of us isn't it? — but he sees and believes. The light of Easter breaks in on him, as it will on Peter when Jesus calls him by name, on Mary Magdalen when He calls her by name.

The point is that these three are a microcosm of the faith community; almost unknowingly, with their different personalities and earlier experiences of Jesus, drawing one another into the darkness of the tomb, the stripping away of the old nature, until the Risen Jesus is brought to birth in them, and they are compelled to tell His good news. Gabriella's family, our church communities, they too are microcosms of those who are seeking the way, the truth and the life. Peter, John, Mary Magdalen, whichever we are, in whatever frame of mind we've come here today to renew the vows which must take us back into the dark womb of the font, we are caught up into the compelling light of a Risen Lord — and are called to renew our commitment to encourage one another in our Easter faith. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ, shall all be made alive.