Below are Archbishop Mark’s homilies for Easter Vigil and Easter Day 2021:
EASTER VIGIL 2021
THE CATHEDRAL OF ST STEPHEN
“In my end is my beginning”: these are the last words of a poem by T. S. Eliot, part of his masterpiece “Four Quartets”. The women who come to the tomb are told that they in turn must tell the disciples and Peter that they are to go to Galilee where Jesus is going and where they will see him. The disciples are to go back to the place where it all began by the lake those years before. At the end of Mark’s Gospel they are to go back to the beginning. The end is only the beginning of a new and astonishing story; and that story, the unending story of Easter, will begin where the Gospel began: up north in Galilee.
They will return to the beginning, but everything will be changed. Not the hills and the towns and the lake: all that will be the same. But the mysterious messenger in a white robe says that they will see Jesus there: it’s their seeing which will be changed forever. They will see everything differently. They will have Easter eyes, a new kind of vision – the kind of vision we find in the Gospels where there’s nothing pre-Easter and where the story of Jesus from its beginning is read through a paschal lens. The women went to the tomb hoping to see Jesus, to see a dead body; but the promise now is that the disciples, in returning to the beginning, will see not a dead body but the body of one who is risen.
The women come to the tomb wondering who will roll away the big stone sealing the entrance to the tomb. They saw the tomb sealed; and the large stone must have seemed like a cosmic full stop – the end of life and the death of hope. But to their amazement, the stone has already been rolled away when they arrive – by whom we’re not told. But even more amazing is the promise that the stone will be rolled away from the eyes of the disciples and they will see Jesus risen, not as they saw him by the lake in the beginning, but neither as a ghost or some phantasm. He will now be different; he will have a body but of a strangely different kind, unconstrained by all that normally constrains a body.
No-one saw the Resurrection, and the Gospels give us no hint of what actually happened, even if some claim that the Shroud of Turin gives us a clue. But for the Gospels what matters is not so much the event of the Resurrection as the encounter which follows. The Resurrection was an event. But what matters is not seeing the Resurrection but seeing the Risen Lord; and that’s the promise made by the messenger.
The earliest Christian creed was, “We have seen the Lord”. Mary Magdalene was the first to declare it (John 20:18), and many others followed her, as we do. Her declaration “I have seen the Lord” became “We have seen the Lord”; and the Church ever since been the community not of the righteous and perfect but of the unrighteous and imperfect who have seen the Lord, those for whom the stone has been rolled away from their eyes.
The stone rolled away from the tomb meant that Jesus could get out and we could get in. St Paul says in what we’ve heard this evening, “When we were baptised we went into the tomb with [Jesus]”. But we can go into the tomb with Jesus only because the stone has been rolled away. The stone has been rolled away from our sight, allowing us to see the Lord; and in seeing him we enter the new life upon which death has no claim. “Death has no power over [Jesus] any more”, says St Paul. “You too”, he goes on, “should consider yourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus”. This is what comes to those for whom the stone has been rolled away, those who have seen the Lord.
That’s the story of each of the brothers and sisters whom we baptise tonight. In the waters of Baptism they will enter the tomb with Jesus, but they will walk out of the tomb with him into the morning light, heading for Galilee to join those who were with Jesus from the beginning and to join us who have also seen the Lord.
Is their Baptism a beginning or an end? It’s both of course. Each of them has had a long and unique journey to the moment of Baptism; and that journey comes to an end tonight. But another journey begins, as much for them as for the disciples once they had seen the Risen Jesus. In seeing the Lord, the disciples came to see everything differently. They see Jesus differently: he who had seemed a tragic failure now appears as an astonishing victor. Jerusalem, which had seemed the city of darkness and death, becomes the city of light and life. Galilee which had seemed the place where hopes were first stirred only to be dashed, a place where so much was left behind for so little gain, now becomes the place of encounter where they see the Lord and the mission begins.
So too our newly baptised brothers and sisters will see things differently. The Church can look like just another clapped-out human institution, wounded in so many ways that it can almost seem a corpse; but they will see the Church as the Body of Christ radiant with a life bigger than death because it’s radiant with the Risen Lord. They will see a world which can look a dark and desperate place, especially in a time like this when so much has gone wrong and is going wrong. But seeing with Easter eyes, eyes that see Jesus everywhere, they will make their own the words of Leonard Cohen: “Even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”.
Because Easter eyes can see, really see, they open us to the experience of amazement of which Pope John Paul II spoke years ago. He said that it’s only in the encounter with the Risen Lord, seeing him, that we finally discover the full truth of who God really is and who the human being really is; and when we see that truth we cannot but be amazed. “The name for that deep amazement”, says the Pope, “…is the Gospel, that is to say the Good News. It is also called Christianity” (Redemptor Hominis, 10). The women, once they enter the tomb, are “struck with amazement”, we are told. Our newly baptised brothers and sisters at some point and in some way have also been “struck by amazement”, not because they’ve seen an empty tomb but because they’ve seen the Risen Lord. On this Easter night, may the gift which they are to the whole Church, new life in the old womb, lead all of us more deeply into the experience of that amazement which cries out tonight and always, “We have seen the Lord, Alleluia!”. Amen.
EASTER DAY 2021 HOMILY
THE CATHEDRAL OF ST STEPHEN
“In my end is my beginning”: these are the last words of a poem by T. S. Eliot, found in his masterpiece “Four Quartets”. The women who come to the tomb are told that they in turn must tell the disciples and Peter that they are to go to Galilee where Jesus is going and where they will see him. The disciples are to go back to the place where it all began by the lake those years before. At the end of Mark’s Gospel they are to go back to the beginning. The end is only the beginning of a new and astonishing story; and that story, the unending story of Easter, will begin where the Gospel began: up north in Galilee.
They will return to the beginning, but everything will be changed. Not so much the hills and the towns and the lake: all that will be the same. But the mysterious messenger in a white robe says that they will see Jesus there: it’s their seeing that will be changed forever. They will see everything differently. They will have Easter eyes, a new kind of vision – the kind of vision we find in the Gospels where there’s nothing pre-Easter and where the story of Jesus from its beginning is read through a paschal lens. The women went to the tomb hoping to see Jesus, to see a dead body; but the promise now is that the disciples, in returning to the beginning, will see not a dead body but the body of one who is risen from the dead.
The women come to the tomb wondering who will roll away the big stone sealing the entrance to the tomb. They saw the tomb sealed; and the large stone must’ve seemed like a cosmic full stop – the end of life and the death of hope. But to their amazement, the stone has already been rolled away when they arrive – by whom we’re not told. But even more amazing is the promise that the stone will be rolled away from the eyes of the disciples and they will see Jesus risen, not as they saw him by the lake in the beginning, but neither as a ghost or some phantasm. “We have eaten and drunk with him”, says Peter in what we have heard this morning. Now however Jesus will be different; he will have a body but of a strangely different kind, unconstrained by all that normally constrains a body.
No-one saw the Resurrection, and the Gospels give us no hint of what actually happened. But for the Gospels what matters is not so much the event of the Resurrection as the encounter which follows. The Resurrection was an event. Yet what matters is not seeing the Resurrection but seeing the Risen Lord; and that’s the promise made by the messenger.
The earliest of all Christian creeds was, “We have seen the Lord”. Mary Magdalene was the first to declare it (John 20:18), and many others have followed her, as we do. Her declaration “I have seen the Lord” became “We have seen the Lord”; and the Church ever since been the community not of the righteous and perfect but of the unrighteous and imperfect who have seen the Lord, those with Easter eyes.
In seeing the Lord, the disciples came to see everything differently. They saw Jesus differently: he who had seemed a tragic failure now appears as an astonishing victor. Jerusalem, which had seemed the city of darkness and death, becomes the city of light and life. Galilee which had seemed the place where hopes were first stirred only to be dashed, a place where so much was left behind for so little gain, now becomes the place of encounter where they see the Lord and the mission begins, the witnessing of which Peter speaks in the Acts of the Apostles.
So too we, baptised into Christ, see things differently. The Church can look like just another clapped-out human institution, wounded in so many ways that it can almost seem a corpse; but we see the Church as the Body of Christ radiant with a life bigger than death because it’s radiant with the Risen Lord. The world can look a dark and desperate place, especially in a time like this when so much has gone wrong and is going wrong. But seeing with Easter eyes, eyes that see Jesus everywhere, we make our own the words of Leonard Cohen: “Even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”.
To see things differently is to act differently; and that acting changes not only the physical world but also the human, social and moral world. It has changed the physical world because of the way Christians have shaped landscapes and built cities and the buildings in them like cathedrals. But it can also change the way we care for the environment, the natural world which is our common home; and that can be a matter of life and death. Seeing differently changes the human, social and moral world because to see the Lord is to see the truth of the human being created in God’s image – the inviolable God-given dignity of every man, woman and child, especially the weakest and the least. Seeing differently can also change the world of creativity and imagination: think of the extraordinary Christian contribution to music, painting, literature, sculpture, theatre and dance.
Because Easter eyes can see, really see, they open us to the experience of amazement of which Pope John Paul II spoke years ago. He said that it’s only in the encounter with the Risen Lord, seeing him, that we finally discover the full and magnificent truth of who God really is and who the human being really is; and when we see that truth we cannot but be amazed. “The name for that deep amazement”, says the Pope, “…is the Gospel, that is to say the Good News. It is also called Christianity” (Redemptor Hominis, 10).
The women, once they enter the tomb, are “struck with amazement”, we are told. At some point and in some way each of us has also been “struck by amazement”, not because we’ve seen an empty tomb but because we’ve seen the Risen Lord. On this Easter morning new life walks from the tomb and new life stirs in the old womb of the Church: may it lead all of us more deeply into the experience of that amazement which gives birth to action and which cries out today and always, “We have seen the Lord, Alleluia!”