20 April 2025 (Easter Day)

Easter Day – 20/04/2025 – Martin Mowat

Readings: Luke 24:1-13. Luke 24:13-27

Easter Day – Resurrection Sunday – you don’t get any better than that! In fact, Easter Day is undoubtedly by far and away the most important, the most significant, and probably the most emotional day in the Christian calendar. 

But we can’t fully appreciate its significance without knowing what had happened 3 days earlier.  

Let’s not beat about the bush! Crucifiction was, in its day, THE cruellest and most inhuman way of torturing someone to death, while they hung in excruciating pain, literally suffocating, for hours on end. 

Crucifiction could actually take several forms, apparently, depending on the whims of the executioners. And the length of time it took for the subject to die could range from hours to up to four days, depending on the method employed and the victim's state of health. Just imagine!

In Jesus’ case, the process was mercifully quite quick, a ‘mere’ six hours or so, but agonising none the less.

While he hung there, he is reported as having said 7 things, which many consider to be amongst the most profound statements he ever made because the fact that he said anything at all was miraculous in itself. 

Apparently, it’s almost impossible to speak when you’re being crucified, let alone ‘in a loud voice’, as Luke was at pains to point out. But given his condition, having been very severely beaten before he even got to the cross, this makes what he said even more significant. These succinct, memorable utterances have echoed down through the ages.

1) The first is sometimes referred to as ‘The Word of Forgiveness’ and it was spoken to a condemned but repentant criminal dying beside him, he showed his mercy and grace “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

2) The second, the Word of Salvation, in which he revealed inconceivable love for those who persecuted, tortured, and murdered Him. ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ (Luke 23:34)

3) The Word of Affection, when he demonstrated his tenderness and deep concern for the well-being of his mother, Mary, ‘Woman, here is your son,” and to his close friend John, “Here is your mother.” ( John 19: 26 f.)

4) Then, at about three in the afternoon, quoting from Psalm 22, the Word of Anguish, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27: 46)

5) The Word of Suffering, ‘I am thirsty’ (John 19:28)

6) The Word of Victory, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30) and then finally

7) The Word of Contentment, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” and then, when he had said this, Luke tells us, he breathed his last. (Luke 23: 46).

The most difficult of these “words”, and one that theologians have discussed endlessly over the centuries is “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27: 46). It was only Matthew and Mark who recorded it, and in Matthew’s case it’s the only one of the ‘words’ that he recorded.

Had God abandoned him, deserted him, turned his back on him, disowned him? Surely not! So why did he think himself as having been abandoned, cast aside, forsaken? 

Was he delirious by then, perhaps? We don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. 

Personally, and I am not a theologian, I think that it shows his humanity, first of all, and I think that it was proof that he was carrying with him our sins, sins which, when unforgiven, do indeed separate us from God. Proof that he was indeed the ultimate sacrifice.

Attending a crucifiction must have been a harrowing and traumatic affair. It’s difficult for us to imagine how his poor widowed mother must have felt. There’s a Latin hymn called “Stabat Mater” that says “The grieving mother stood weeping beside the cross where her son was hanging. Through her weeping soul, compassionate and grieving, a sword passed.” That had been, of course, Simeon’s prophecy all those years before, the day she and Joseph had presented their baby in the Temple. 

But what about his real father, the God who is love itself? What was his response to what was going on? Surely, he must have had some emotions too. It was a “darkness that came over the whole land (and not just an eclipse of the sun),” during which “the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom,” “the earth quaked … rocks split, and graves were opened …” 

Just think about it. No wonder eyewitnesses like the Roman centurion exclaimed, “Truly, thisreally was the Son of God!” (Luke 23:34, Luke 23:46, Matthew 27:45-54, NKJV, italics added).

For me one of the most significant things that happened that day was the splitting of that curtain.  It is thought to have been 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and as thick as the breadth of a man's hand, about 4 inches or 10 centimetres.  It was beautifully brocaded with cherubim motifs woven directly into the fabric. It divided the ‘Holy of Holies’ from the lesser ‘Holy place’ in the temple.  The Holy of Holies was believed to contain God’s presence and only the High Priest could go in there, and then only once a year.

But that day that massive curtain split clean in half, signifying that forgiven sinners like you and I, now have access right inside the Holy of Holies, into God’s glorious presence.

The author of the epistle to the Hebrews said this about it: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God (Jesus), let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Dayapproaching. (Hebrews 10:19-25)

And then, barely three days later, the thing that Jesus himself had prophesied but nobody could really bring themselves to believe actually did happen - the tomb, sealed and guarded by a detachment of Roman soldiers, was found deserted and empty. 

In all history, no-one else has been able to do that. And it’s not just a fairy story, whatever people chose to think. Roman literature recorded it all.

This was the ultimate victory. This was total proof. This would change the world for ever. Sin was conquered; death was conquered. Love had proved itself stronger than hate. 

The group of four or more women who went, very early that Easter morning, to have a quiet time together after all the drama, and to embalm his body, were shocked to find the tomb empty, and even more shocked to be addressed by those two angels.

They ran to tell the apostles. When they got to them, as we just heard, they were so out of breath, and still hardly able to believe what they had seen and heard, that the apostles had to tell them to sit down, calm themselves and start again. It was true, they all realised, it really had happened. 

But what would happen next, what would the authorities say and do?

While the apostles were struggling with all that, two men, believers who had been in Jerusalem for the Passover festivities, were walking home feeling despondent. 

We’ve just heard the story, or part of it, but the bit I like the most, is in the next chapter, when “they approached their village, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther.  But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.”

While they were having supper, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Instantly they recognized him, but the very moment that they did, he disappeared from their sight.  They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?”

What’s interesting, though, is what they did next. Despite it being late in the evening, they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and those with them, and told them what had happened and how they had recognised Jesus when he broke the bread. 

“It is true!” they said, “The Lord has risen.” (Matthew 24:28-34)