EASTER – A NEW WORLD

So, Easter has suffered the same fate as Christmas.

It has come and gone and the supermarkets no longer sell Easter eggs – without the word Easter.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Easter is the God event that will never vanish. It is God’s foundation stone for humanity. It is the key to unlock the meaning of life.

It is the secret to reveal the purpose of our human existence.

Easter is nothing less than the discovery of a new world.

We live in very exciting scientific times.

I am fascinated by the new discoveries in astronomy.

Astronomers have built telescopes on mountains 10,000 feet high to gain the clearest possible atmosphere.

With their giant telescopes they are revealing new worlds at the furthest reaches of our universe.

So now they often speak of our ‘multiverse’that is many universes.

So let us describe in similarly courageous ideas what God has done for the human race in Jesus Christ.

In Jesus’life and supremely in Jesus’passion on the Cross and victory over the grave, God has created nothing less than a new world, a spiritual universe.

Unlike astronomers, we do not need great telescopes to find God’s new world.

Just look into your own heart and soul, for the divine universe of God’s new life is perhaps already there.

Society has made Easter far too small and the meaning of Easter far too shallow.

And the insipid voice of a fearful church has not been raised in protest.

The death of Jesus Christ on that Calvary Cross was universal in its scope, timeless in its meaning, and dynamic with the spiritual power of God.

There is a power of evil and Jesus died to break and destroy that power.

Jesus’physical suffering was unendurable.

But Jesus’emotional, spiritual and eternal agony was unbearable.

On that Cross, Jesus was isolated from humanity and from God.

Do not minimise his terrible cry:“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

But Easter is the two-fold divine drama of the Cross and the Empty Tomb.

God created the Cross for his Son to carry.

God also opened the tomb from which his Son decisively emerged .

The Resurrection is God’s act. God raised Jesus from the Tomb of death.

The reality of the resurrection is the‘reality of God’(Hans Kung).

The Cross is the reality of God’s eternal love. The Empty Tomb, the reality of God’s eternal life.

We can be in touch with eternity, or rather eternity is now a reality within human history and individual experiences.

In Jesus, God is known by us. When we open our life to God we realise God’s wonderful love for us in Jesus. But God is also beyond us. The greater wisdom of God is beyond our knowing.

The true nature of God is beyond our understanding.

The perfect sight of God is beyond our seeing.

We should not find this a difficult idea.

After all, we accept the infinite reaches of space as revealed by our scientists.

So, God, whose life is beyond ours, has encountered us in our time and space in the two-fold Easter event of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

This is the wonder of God coming to people in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

People can now live in the divine dimension of God, as in a new world, the new universe of God.

Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) was a contemporary of Calvin and Luther.

A thoughtful theologian, he wrote of the presence of the Holy Spirit: “Where there is an awakening, where the church is born of the Word of God, there is the Holy Spirit.”

Where there is an awakening, there is the presence of the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit unveils our eyes to see Jesus in our days.

God’s Spirit opens our ears to understand Jesus’teaching and instructions. God’s Spirit opens our minds to understand the meaning of our life God’s Spirit opens our heart to love Jesus.

God’s Spirit opens our soul to be saved by Jesus

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God” (Romans 8.14).