Easter Day: New Beginnings

Sunday just wasn’t meant to be like this. 

Resurrection is about the unexpected.

Good Friday had been a dreadful day for Jesus’ followers and it ended with a burial.

When I was growing up my journey to school meant that every day I walked through a cemetery.  Yet, when you’re young death seems so far off that my daily brush with tomb stones never really troubled me.

After Calvary the Jesus’ story is all about the tomb.  It’s a borrowed tomb, it has a stone to seal it and by Sunday women are drawn to it because graves and stones, tombs and memorials are all about endings and remembering.

That’s what this Sunday was meant to be about; making the best of it, catching a crumb of comfort that the struggle, even if it ended in defeat and failure was at least a struggle that was now over.  So, the women came to say it with flowers.

Well, at dawn it’s as if it all goes off script.  Resurrection is in the air.  The disciples sense the life of Jesus amongst them once again. Instead of a tomb sealed by a stone the gospels talk of an empty tomb.  No longer is this a memorial to a life snuffed out but a celebration of life to be lived.  It’s not the end of the story but the beginning of the next chapter.

And there are moments, thank God, like that in our lives too.  Moments when we thought we’d come to the end of the road; but then, maybe unexpectedly, seemingly from nowhere, a solution is found, a relationship is restored, new strength is gained and suddenly what we too thought was an ending has the touch of resurrection about it as the love of God and the life of the Spirit and the kindness of Jesus blesses our life once more with hope and new beginnings.

We might be praying for such moments this Easter Sunday – praying for a fresh dawn in the politics of our nation, in relationships within our families, in the spirit of our workplace or in the momentum of our church.

Today’s gospel gives us hope that fresh starts and new beginnings are possible.  What we once thought was inevitably coming to an end has turned out to be the Segway into the next chapter.