Sermon for Easter

Easter Day (2009) Year B RCL Eucharist

An ‘Easter frame of mind’

In some ways it is quite hard to prepare an Easter sermon, particularly when, as is usual with sermons, one is preparing during the week before. This last week was, of course, Holy Week, and this year we have made special effort this year to observe Holy Week, with services that have focussed on healing, on repentance, and telling of the painful events of the Passion of our Lord Jesus, from his arrest to his crucifixion. In this week we have sought to set our minds on the passion and the death of our Lord Jesus and not on his resurrection. Though we know what happened beyond the cross part of our observance of this week just gone is to call to mind all that Jesus went through to bring us life in all its fullness.

So this sermon was started on Maundy Thursday, after the service of the renewal of Ministerial Promises which I (and various Readers, Deacons, Priests, Bishops and even a few normal people) attended in the Cathedral in the morning. And as I wrote I tried to put myself in an Easter frame of mind. It wasn’t too difficult, just a little odd.

This led me to thinking that perhaps it is too easy to fall into the ‘Easter frame of mind’. Perhaps we too easily skip over Holy Week and don’t really take part in the observance that is perhaps the most important part of the Church’s year. We jump on to Easter, Easter is familiar, perhaps even comfortable. We’re used to Easter, we think about it every week – we refer to our risen Lord, and talk of ‘Christ in Glory’. [more]