Easter Day 2024: Gloucester Cathedral
Readings: Acts 10:34-43 and John 20:1-18
I suspect that most of us have seen shocking pictures of that destroyed Baltimore Bridge, not only resulting in loss of life but also leaving communities and businesses in a place of deep separation and disconnection. That bridge is for me something of a metaphor for a world which, with technology and travel, seemingly has greater connection than ever before, and yet a world which is blighted by separation and disconnection.
Earlier this month I had the privilege of being in New York at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The concepts of connection and disconnection; relationship and separation, have been strong in my reflections.
It was not easy listening to representatives from Israel, including one of the women who had been held hostage with her son after the horrific atrocities of Hamas on 7 October. The horror of brutal disconnection, imprisonment, separation and trauma was palpable, as was the sense of broken relationship.
A few hours later I sat in a session focused on the women and children of Gaza and listened to the pain, anger and desperation of people who are effectively imprisoned, disconnected and separated from the world around them, resulting in a humanitarian crisis that I suspect most of us cannot bear to dwell on for too long.
The two rooms where the sessions were held were in close proximity but the emotional and psychological separation and disconnection were immense.
In another session focused on the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, the words of one woman are etched in my memory as she so forcefully articulated that as women they have not simply become disconnected from society, but rather they have been erased. Utter separation.
And I’m sure that as we reflect on issues closer to home, in local communities and across the country, we would not find it difficult to give examples of disconnection and separation – whether it be in families and households, or in the challenging issues facing us as a nation and in our local communities.
On Good Friday, I was in a women’s prison in Surrey. In my role as Anglican Bishop to Prisons I am deeply aware not only of the disconnection and separation we impose as punishment, but also how issues of disconnection and severed relationship are often so prominent in the stories of those in prison. Now is not the time for me to expand on all this, but it is interesting that our human response to the brokenness so often rooted in disconnection and separation, is further separation and disconnection, whether it be the young person removed from school or the person sent to prison.
Not so with God’s work of restoration and transformation.
In that prison chapel on Friday amid those women’s stories of disconnection, severed relationship and separation; there was a deep sense of entering into Christ’s pain and death as he hung on the cross in a place of utter desolation, and separation not only from friends and followers who had fled, but even from God the Father. So as the world’s brokenness and sin (past, present and future) was held between those outstretched arms, Jesus cried out in agony ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me.’ In this place of disconnection, darkness covers the land. The light goes out. And in that bleakest of hours it looks as if hope has been cut off and separation has had the final word.
Perhaps it feels like that to you as you look out at the world through the lens of the media and social media, and as we look at our own lives and the lives of those around us.
Yet, in that prison chapel, even as we knelt at the foot of the cross, there was also a deep sense of hope, and a clinging on to the truth that in Christ’s outstretched arms on the cross was the most overwhelming and generous act of love and reconnection that there will ever be.
And so it is that Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb three days after Christ’s burial. she is once more in a place of brokenness and disconnection. In her grief she is cut off from Jesus whom she loves so deeply.
Then she sees that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, and in her confusion and distress runs to tell the other disciples, and so it is that John and Peter run to the tomb.
And then Mary looks in and sees an angel, yet in her grief and confusion she cannot connect with the truth. It is only when Jesus speaks her name that she recognises the risen Christ, and there is reconnection and a sense of restored relationship.
[Incidentally after my time in New York I rejoice even more deeply that the first witness to Christ’s resurrection was a woman who was once shunned and separated from her community but who had discovered restoration, dignity and worth, through Jesus Christ’s love and counter-cultural relationship of connection].
Jesus tells Mary not to hold on to him – because true reconnection with God and neighbour and the world is going to be something far greater than physically holding on to the person of Jesus. Restoration is not going to be about life going back to how it was. Indeed, those words of Jesus to Mary about him ascending are really important in God’s great work of reconnection and restored relationship.
In 50 days’ time, if you stay the course, we will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost (just 10 days after Ascension Day and the mystery of Jesus leaving the earth and returning to be with God the Father); and we will celebrate the amazing mystery of God’s Holy Spirit coming to be with us in every place and at every time (connection mysteriously poured out in abundance).
And it is after this that the apostle Peter, speaks those words which we heard in our first reading from the book of Acts. Peter, who in a place of fear before Christ’s crucifixion, denied even knowing him, but then after Jesus’ resurrection is restored to relationship with him. And then sometime after Jesus Christ’s ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter is able to say, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality… ‘that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ receives forgiveness of sins.’
God’s heart is for re-connection and restored relationship with all people: Children, young people, adults; people of every age, background, story; those who see themselves as insiders and those who feel separated and disconnected. ALL people. No partiality. This was shocking news, not least for faithful Jews. (Go home and read the first part of Acts Chapter 10).
God’s promise of reconnection – to reconcile all things to God – is not on a par with President Biden promising to rebuild a devastated bridge. It is far far greater – even beyond our imagining – as on this Easter day we proclaim what God has done in Jesus Christ and wonderfully what cannot be undone, even as we live amid the mess and pain of this world’s separation and disconnection. In this Eucharist we will proclaim that ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again’. Perfect relationship will be restored, with God, with one another, and with all of creation.
That doesn’t mean that the pain of disconnection and separation that we see close at hand and far away, is any less painful. Indeed, if we have followed Jesus Christ to the foot of the cross and beyond to the empty tomb and proclaimed today, ‘Alleluia he is risen’, then we have also said ‘yes’ to entering ever more deeply into those places of separation and disconnection, as followers of Christ who live and speak hope even through our tears and in the darkest places.
In this Eucharist as we stretch out our hands and open our hearts to the love, mercy and forgiveness of God, the future fulfilment of God’s restorative work and all that God has done in the past through Christ, are met together in the present as we are fed in bread and wine.
When you leave the Cathedral today those huge glass doors are marked with the keys of St Peter, because of course this cathedral takes his name. And may those of us, who like Peter have said ‘yes’ to following Jesus Christ, step through those doors refreshed and restored as Easter-hope people, desiring to share the connecting love and hope of the risen Christ, not least among all those who feel separated and disconnected in our beautiful yet broken world.
Alleluia, Christ is risen.
The Rt Revd Rachel Treweek,
Bishop of Gloucester and Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons
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