Enter the tomb

Easter Day . For a selection of readings see here Isaiah 25:6-9;Acts 10:34-43;Psalm 118:1-2,14-24; 1 Cor 15:1-11; John 20:1-18; Mark 16:1-8

Easter is not about avoiding death

It is about choosing to not be defeated by it

Today, as every Easter Day, we are given the opportunity

to reaffirm our Christian commitment.

We are asked:

Do you turn to Christ? and we will gladly reply

I turn to Christ.

We are asked also three questions

about what we will do

to put this into practice

Do you repent of your sins?

We choose to admit our past failing

and today, on this day of new beginning,

Easter Day

we promise to live our life differently.

Do you reject selfish living?

When we reject selfishness

we must find ways to be kind, to be generous, to share

We cannot combat selfishness and not share.

Finally we are asked a serious question

Do you reject evil?

We might ask ourselves: but what is evil?

And it is not an easy question.

But it revolves around the way we view other people.

Each one of us is made in the image of God,

and therefore we should treat all other people

with equal dignity and respect,

but do we do that?

When we see people as commodities rather than individuals,

when we think only of people as sexual objects

when we see anyone as disposable

we are assenting to evil in the profoundest way.

When we are silent, when we should speak out,

or when we trivialise the lives of others

and say that they, their problems, their aspirations

are not worthwhile

we diminish ourselves, and each other.

This is serious stuff

But it is a choice we make

When we ask ourselves 

What is it that makes Christian experience of death

Of sin, of selfishness and of  evil 

Different from that of others

It is that we choose to enter the tomb.

We do not escape death, pain or sin.

Rather we believe that those things ]

Are not the last word

And we choose to live our life differently.

It is as we choose

As we exercise our freedom

As we decide

To follow Christ

To repent

To reject selfishness

And to renounce evil

 This is not passive

We do nto stand pn the edge of the death experience

And peer in.

Each of us who has grieved

Knows that the mystery of death

Is that it is as we get into it

That we discover

That we pass through it

And are transformed.

The little deaths, 

Sin, selfishness and evil

All have the same dynamic.

We are not to sit passively  by and do nothing

But we decide to reject them as a way of life

This is not always easy

We often get it wrong

We sometimes fail

That, in a way, doesn’t matter

It is not as we get it right that matters so much

As that we choose to live free from sin, selfishness and evil

We go into the tomb

We do not seek to avoid the death

And we discover that we are set free.

This is a key mystery of life

It is the invitation of Easter.

Choose life, not death

But choose it knowing that it is not an easy way

It requires us to struggle with sin, selfishness and evil.

But it is the only way that is worthwhile.