A Time to Die

Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33

One of the most underrated books of the Bible must surely be the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is a pity because, of all the Wisdom literature, it is at least as wise as the others and by far the most entertaining!  Most of us probably know only the famous passage in chapter 3 (A Time for Everything), and even then we may know it better from the song version than the original text.  And we have at least one good excuse; it very rarely turns up in our Lectionary for reading on a Sunday morning.  And that, too, is a pity, particularly today, when it would have provided a perfect overture for this morning's gospel reading.

Here's the opening one-and-a-half verses of chapter 3:  There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die.  And, of course, the author goes on for another six or so verses giving other examples of what he has in mind – a time for this and a time for that.  As I have said in the notes in the pewsheet, our Scriptures treat this whole issue of time (or timing) as one of major importance.  Time is built into the very structure of the universe, as our autumn season is presently reminding us.  It is time for fruit and seed to fall to the ground and die; it is time for deciduous trees to shed their leaves; it is time (alas!) for grass to have a bit of a growth spurt to prepare for the harsher times to come.

Timing is also important for us.  Gestation is supposed to take 37 weeks.  As we have seen in the paper recently, to let a pregnancy go much beyond that is dangerous; indeed, in that particular case it was fatal.  For birth to occur too prematurely can be equally hazardous to the baby's health.  There is a time (a right time) to be born.  And the importance of timing in our lives doesn't stop with our birth, as any parent knows.  Development takes time; children need time to be children if they are to become healthy adults.  Girls need time to become women if they are to become good mothers, and boys need to become men before they can become good fathers.  Physiologically and psychologically there is a right time for each of the major stages of our lives.

Just how important that can be has been brought home to me on many occasions during my ministry.  In the Waikato I worked with a group of people for whom a huge issue was the passing of the family farm from one generation to another, including the passing on of the family homestead.  Most townies have probably never had to face these sorts of issues in quite the same way.  But think for a moment what a potent mix is involved in these sorts of cases, where the business and the family home is all mixed up together.  What is best for the business?  The farmer is in his fifties or sixties; he has built up a huge amount of knowledge and experience and he loves the farm dearly.  But – physically he's not the man he once was; like a rugby player his body is beginning to rebel.  And perhaps he's a bit set in his ways, not so open to innovation and taking calculated risks.

Is his son (or daughter) ready to take over?  Unlike the parent, the child has been to Lincoln or Massey and is highly qualified.   Maybe even study trips overseas.  Up with all the latest ideas, and, of course, is computer-literate!  But is he or she ready?  Can they work together through the transition, or would it be better for the old man to ride off into the sunset?  And then there's the homestead – who is to be the boss of that?  Is Mum ready to yield pride of place to daughter-in-law?  There is a time to work and a time to retire, a time to take charge and a time to hand over authority, a time to come and a time to go.

In Wellington the worse mistake I ever made in ministry was to agree to a request from a member of the family to suggest to Mum, then well into her eighties, that it was time to start thinking about moving from her home of fifty years that was up about as many steps to something smaller, more convenient and, above all, on the flat.  Needless to say she sent me back down the 50 steps with my mission unaccomplished!

Then there's the whole issue of retirement.  I've always been a reformer at heart.  Usually when someone proposes a change I'm at least open to considering it fairly, but I have to say that I'm still not sure that I favour the abolition of a compulsory retirement date.  Yes, I understand the arguments, but I can also cite many examples where the outcome has been a mess.  People have stayed on too long, driving younger and more capable people away.  Boxers are not the only ones who don't know when to quit.  In my public service days I saw countless examples of people retiring reluctantly – "I'm only going because I have to" – only to discover that retirement was thoroughly enjoyable.  There is a time and a season for everything.

Then there is the whole question of drivers' licences.  This was a constant source of angst among the elderly folk who came to our midweek service in Wellington.  They were lovely people, but the language they used about the M.O.T people who tested them to see if they were still fit to drive was often slanderous, to put it mildly!  It's a nice idea to think that we know when the time has come for us, but I have to say that my own experience contradicts that.  Since I have announced my retirement I have been amused by the people of my own age busily assuring me that I am retiring too soon!

There is, says the wise author of the Book of Ecclesiastes, a time to die.  We all know when it is too soon, but how many of us know when it is time?  One of the most difficult questions I was ever asked by my young Bible class in Otaki was on this very question: if when we die we go to be with Jesus, why is my Gran so afraid of dying?  Good question, young man – go and ask your Father!  We all know there is a time to die, but how many of us prepare for that time?  How many of us can talk about it with our loved ones and make sensible arrangements for it?

Our gospel reading this morning is about all this.  Some Greeks (or, as we would say today, some Gentiles) make a tentative approach, not to Jesus, but to one of his disciples, Philip, as a sort of intermediary.  Presumably they weren't sure if they would be received by Jesus himself.  Perhaps Philip wasn't sure either.  Instead of going to Jesus he passed their request to Andrew, one of the inner circle, who took Philip to Jesus with their request.  Jesus responded in a surprising way; not with a "yes" or a "no", but with an interpretation of the significance of their request.  He saw it as an indication that his hour had come; it was time for him to die.  With the Gentiles beginning to come to him his earthly mission was complete – it was time to go to Jerusalem and suffer his saving death.  It was time to die.

Of course, he wasn't overjoyed at the prospect; on the contrary his heart was troubled.  Yet he accepted that it was time, and from then on everything he did was by was by of preparation for it.  In particular he prepared those around him for his death.

During our lives we face many "deaths", some of which I have touched on in this sermon this morning.  They can be quite painful, but if done in time and with purpose they can lead to renewal and refreshment.  They often involve loss, giving something up, and if we allow ourselves to focus only on that it's no wonder that we often delay too long.  As people of faith we need to look at the positive – not what am I giving up but what do I still have?  And what will I have instead?  More time for other things, perhaps, more time for thinking, for praying, for being with others.  More time in short for the really important things in life.

Jesus saw his death on the cross as his opportunity to glorify God.  In the same way we need to ask ourselves why we are often reluctant to let go, and trust in God's promise that when we do he has better things in store for us – as individuals and as communities of faith.  And   Lent is the right season for this activity under heaven.  Amen.

Believing is Seeing

Texts: Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

They use to call Madonna "the Material Girl", I think.  I'm not sure why; not being a fan of hers I have never bothered to find out.  Perhaps some of you know.  But it's an odd title anyway because the same could be said about the entire human race.  We are "material boys and girls: we are materialist, not necessarily in the sense that we all desire worldly wealth, but in the sense that we need solid objects, we need physical proof to prop up our belief in something, including our religious beliefs.  We know in our heads that the God we worship is Immaterial – or Spirit, to use a more religiously correct term.  Yet throughout our faith history we have sought solid objects as symbols of God, which, all too often, have grown into idols to be worshipped instead of God.

The classic story about all this, of course, is the infamous golden calf, which Aaron (who should have known better) made for the Israelites when they grew tired of waiting for Moses to bring down a message from the God whom no one can ever see and live to tell the table.  They wanted a solid, material god, like the other nations had, whom they could see, and keep on a shelf, and bring off the shelf in times of danger.  And those of us who find we are most likely to pray at times of heightened drama are in no position to laugh at such practices.  We metaphorically keep God on a shelf sometimes until we really need him.

Today's first lesson is another story about needing a symbol of God's presence with us; and history tells us that this symbol of a snake on a stick was later turned into an idol worthy of worship.  If, like most of us, you like to spend wet afternoons reading your way through the Books of Kings, you will find this bronze snake in a very surprising place.  It seems that by the time of King Hezekiah, one of the great reforming kings of Judah, the snake on a stick was in the Temple.  Not for long, after Hezekiah spotted it.  In 2 Kings 18:4 we find this:  He [King Hezekiah] broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.) 

Can I pause there for a moment and ask this: isn't this classic religious practice?  We acquire something for a particular purpose at a particular time.  And when it has served its purpose we put it in our holy place and it becomes an object of reverence, to be defended at all costs.  Manual objects can be great aids to prayer and reflection.  Many people find candles, or crucifixes, or icons, or stained-glass windows, or organs, or something else helps them to focus on God in a special and deeper way; and all such things are valuable when used in that way.  But all too easily they become more than symbols, they become objects of worship.  And what is true of objects can be equally true of church buildings.  Look at the argument going on at present over the old Methodist church in Hillside.  The people of the faith community say the building no longer serves to facilitate the worship and service of God, so it must be knocked down.  Others say, but it is an object of historical significance, a thing of worth and significance in itself, and must be revered and retained.

But back to the snake on the stick.  In itself the story seems to make little if any sense.  The people are once again in a bad mood.  Just when they thought their wanderings in the desert would soon be over, they were forced on a large detour because the Edomites wouldn't give them transit rights.  So they once again began to grumble against Moses, and because Moses was simply carrying out God's orders, they were in reality grumbling against God, as they well knew.  No matter how many times God provided for them or rescued them from some plight, they never quite got to the point of putting their trust in him.  The next time anything went wrong, they lapsed into disbelief (or distrust).

And once again, in God's reaction to their lack of faith, we see, as it were, both sides of God's nature in action at the same time.  The author makes it clear that the venomous snakes that attacked the Israelites were sent by God.  They weren't there by accident or in the ordinary course of nature.  God put them there to punish the Israelites for their disobedience.  And this was no mild punishment: many of the Israelites died from the snakes' venom.  So there is the wrath of God, we might say God's dark side, the side of his nature that prompted him to plan to drown the whole world and start over.

And just as God relented and provided an escape route for Noah and his family in the ark, so now God provides a mechanism for those who are now willing to believe his word.  He tells them that the cure for a lethal dose of snake venom is to look at a bronze ornament Moses has made of a snake on a stick.  Just as daft in scientific terms as poor old Naaman the Syrian army commander being told that if he made a complete fool of himself dipping in the River Jordan seven times he would be cured of leprosy.  Yet he did (eventually) and he was!

And when we think about it, the same model of healing – or as we would say in this context, of salvation – is followed in our Christian faith, as we see spelt out for us in this morning's reading.  There is no scientific reason why turning to a man crucified on a cross should have any effect on anyone else at all, except, of course, to make us ill at the sight.  Yet this is what Jesus said, according to St John: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."  And, of course, he goes on to spell out that this is the reason why he has come down from heaven to earth: to be the one who is lifted up on the stick so that everyone who turns and looks to him will be protected from the poison in their system and given life.

And while we are on this passage, I can never resist pointing out what Jesus doesn't say.  He doesn't that those who believe in him shall not burn in hell but have eternal life; he says whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  While I must concede that other passages in the Scriptures talk of eternal punishment in the fires of hell, in this passage at least Jesus tells us that the alternative to eternal life is extinction.  Those who refuse to believe have no life in them.  They are dead for all time (and presumably beyond time).

Subject always, of course, to the grace of God!  So I want to finish this morning with this wonderful passage from St Paul.  Who can resist him when he is in this sort of form!  Not content with assuring the believers at Ephesus that, having died with Christ in baptism, they have been raised up (resurrected) with him into new life, he now goes even further and tells them (and us!) that they and we have been raised up with Christ into the heavenly places!  I don't pretend to understand that – it's all too marvellous for my mind.

But I do believe it!  Each year, each Lent, I believe it a little bit more.  And each Easter I celebrate it a little bit more.  If people bitten by venomous snakes can be healed by looking at a bronze ornament, and if Army Commanders can be cured of leprosy by bobbing up and down in a river, we can truly say that all things are possible for those who believe the word of God.  Amen.

The Return of Innocence

Texts: Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

Those many people today who want to pooh-pooh our Christian faith make the Resurrection of Christ their particular target.  Even people who are reasonably sympathetic towards the Christian tradition, such as Ian Harris, also take aim at the Resurrection story.  They are right to do so.  It all depends on the Resurrection.  If Christ was raised from the dead, as the Church has always insisted from the very beginning, then our critics are wrong and they need to sort themselves out.  If he was not raised from the dead, then we are wrong and it's time to stop fantasising and grow up.  There is no Christian faith without the Resurrection of Christ.  Followers and critics alike can agree on that.

But where the critics go wrong – and Ian Harris has repeated the mistake in his latest column in the ODT – is in their apparent belief that the Risen Christ appeared only to the believers, and that therefore their witness can be discredited.  That simply isn't the case, and it isn't the case for a number of reasons.

The first reason we call St Paul.  In no sense could he be described as a believer when he was en route to Damascus.  With great respect to Mary Magdalene, and all the other witnesses whose testimony we have in our gospels, my prime witness to the resurrection is always St Paul.  Ian Harris talks about the joy and surprise the disciples experienced when they realised that the vision and excitement generated in them by Jesus was still there after his death.  That, he says, is what they meant by Jesus rising again; he rose again in their hearts and minds, and their renewed dedication to his way of life.  Well, we'll come to the disciples in a moment; but how are we to explain all this in terms of St Paul?  He didn't know Jesus, and he certainly did not share his vision and excitement.  Yet his life was transformed from persecutor to apostle by something that happened to him on the road to Damascus.

Ian Harris "explains" Easter in terms of a powerful religious myth.  But even he never goes so far to claim that on the road to Damascus St Paul was knocked flat on his back and temporarily blinded by a powerful religious myth!  So, at the very least we can say that the argument that the Risen Christ only appeared to believers is refuted by his appearance to St Paul.

But we can say a lot more than that, as our gospel readings last Sunday and this Sunday make clear.  When the Risen Christ appeared to Mary at the tomb, and when the Risen Christ appeared to the apostles on Easter night, they were no longer believers!  They were non-believers.  As we saw last week, confronted with the fact that the tomb was empty Mary assumed that somebody had removed Jesus' dead body.  Confronted by the Risen Christ, she did not recognise him but thought he must be the gardener and that he had removed the body!  Does that sound like a believer?  And, of course, the second part of our gospel reading this morning emphasises that Thomas was completely unconvinced, even by the excited testimony of his fellow apostles.

So I would say that the Risen Christ appears to those who did not believe in the resurrection, and had to be convinced by him before they could believe.  He appeared, in other words, to non-believers.

But that's only a small part of the importance of these stories.  The more important part is that the Risen Christ appeared to the guilty.  There is what Rowan Williams calls a resurrection pattern in the Scriptures, repeated over and over again.  The Risen Christ comes to his guilty disciples, all of whom have failed the test.  When the Risen Christ comes to St Paul he comes to the one guilty of persecuting the Church.  When Peter preaches in Jerusalem he goes out of his way to remind his audience that they were guilty of putting Jesus to death.  Whatever else the resurrection stories are about, they are about confronting the guilty.

And we saw a very vivid illustration of that in the media this week.  A very interesting and valuable innovation in our criminal courts in recent years has been the use of victim impact reports, where, following conviction, the guilty person must hear what impact the offending had on the victim.  It gives the victim the right to have his or her voice heard; and it ensures that whatever sentence is passed, the full weight of the offending is acknowledged.  Only when that is done, can the court, the offender and the public address the future.  The offender may deserve a second chance, but that does not lessen the enormity of the offence.

Jesus appears to the guilty as the innocent victim, and one of the first things he does is to show them his wounds – "his hands and his side", as St John puts it.  Traditionally, that is taken as producing I.D., proving it really is him.  But it occurred to me this week, after watching the news headlines from the Tony Veitch case, that what we have in this gospel account can also be understood as Jesus' victim impact report.  "Look at me.  Look how I have suffered.  Look what you have done to me."

Now such a confrontation can lead to three responses.  One may be to reject it.  It wasn't me; I was provoked, I was under duress, I was saving my own skin, I was following orders.  Tony Veitch said "That wasn't me.  I'm not like that.  I needed to understand how I was driven to it."  And that approach, or something similar, may well have occurred to some of these apostles hiding behind closed doors.

Or we might be so overwhelmed with guilt that it destroys us.  We can't live with it.  Judas is the classic example of that.  Suicide was for him the only option.  Neither of those options is the one offered by the Risen Christ to those he now confronts.  He offers them peace; not amnesia, not a false innocence, nor a crippling guilt.  But peace.  He says it twice.  Peace that brings forgiveness and acceptance; he accepts them as they are, weak and guilty, and so they can accept themselves as they are.  And as weak and guilty people they can go out into the world and confront other weak and guilty people with the extraordinary truth that they are acceptable to God despite their weakness and guilt.  So the Risen Christ sends them out into the world with a special mission of forgiveness.

I want to end this morning with this little glimpse of the community of faith as we have it in our first lesson, from the Book of Acts.  St Paul's transformation from persecutor to apostle was astonishing, to say the least.  Almost as astonishing is the transformation of this bunch of people, whose leaders cut and ran when the crunch came.  Remember what they were like immediately before the arrest and crucifixion: abusing the woman who anointed Jesus at Bethany; squabbling among themselves for pride of place in the coming kingdom; boasting about their undying loyalty to Jesus, and so on.  Then one of them betrayed him, one denied even knowing him, and all of them ran for their lives and were in hiding behind locked doors on the night of the resurrection.

Yet here they are "one in heart and mind", sharing their possessions.  And at the centre of this little community of faith we see the apostles, those weak and guilty but forgiven men, continuing to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  There in those transformed lives is all the evidence we need for the resurrection, whatever our critics might want to say.

That's why (if you look at the next two verses) a Cypriot Levite called Joseph, but known to Christian history as St Barnabas, sold a field and denoted the proceeds to the church.  And that's why we're sitting in this lovely little church dedicated to his name.  His name means, Son of Encouragement.  Let us be encouraged!  Amen.

This is the Truth!

Texts: Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 20:1-18

One of the most important and helpful things we do in the Church around this time of the year is to set aside all other readings, and the sermon, and read in its entirety the Passion story as we have it in one of our gospels.  All of the various episodes in the story are important, and most of them are familiar to us, even if we can never quite remember which bit comes from which gospel.  But it's when we hear the whole account at one hit, as it were, that its full extraordinary power makes itself felt.

Perhaps the usual practice is to have the story read on Passion Sunday, the Sunday before Palm Sunday, two weeks before Easter.  But it has been my practice to have it read on Palm Sunday.  There is a cost to that; it means that we tend to overlook the Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem, and all that that entails; but I think the cost is worth paying because it sets out for us the way to the cross that we walk in Holy Week.  It enables us then to focus on a part of the story on Maundy Thursday, and another part on Good Friday, without losing sight of the fact that it is all one story that we are involved in.  So last Sunday, Palm Sunday, we had read to us the whole Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St Mark.

That whole story then was in our minds and our memories – in the air we breathed in the Church - this week as we followed Jesus to the Cross and to the tomb.  And the story ended there, in death, in silence, as we were reminded in our services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  We were out of words; there was nothing more to be said.  We went home in silence and sadness.  And it's because we do that – because with the Church we wait through Holy Saturday in sadness and silence – we can enter into the shock and awe of today's discovery that the tomb – against all odds and expectations – is empty!

And that is the truth the Church proclaims today.  "Ah," said Pilate to Jesus, "but what is truth?"  How modern Pilate sounds today when he asks that question!  Of course, we don't know how he asked that question.  It seems to depend on the reader!  Was he sneering when he said it?  Was he just being cynical?  Was it a genuine inquiry?  Or was he just being modern – refusing to make a personal commitment to any particular truth?  Did he believe there are any number of truths, all of which are equally valid?  That's the modern view, or perhaps I should sound clever and say it's the post-modern view.  Whatever it is, it's complete nonsense, and today of all days we need to affirm that certain things are true.  And one of those is that today, Easter morning, the tomb is empty!

One of the things that I have tried to do at regular intervals during my ministry is to re-read the order of service we use for the ordination of priests.  And there is a very interesting little bit in there that is especially important on Easter Day.  It comes in a series of questions put by the Bishop and answered by the candidate for priesthood.  The Bishop, having asked about the candidate's view of the Scriptures, now asks this:

Will you set forth the doctrines of the faith as this Church has received them?  To which the candidate is expected to reply:

Yes, I will.  My duty and my joy will be to witness to Christ crucified and risen.

There are two things in particular about that little interchange that I want to draw to your attention.  The first is that important phrase "the doctrines of the faith as this Church has received them".  We are not called to think of new ideas each year, to stay relevant or something, to get into the twenty-first century or whatever; nor are we called to proclaim our own truths as individual priests.  We are called to proclaim what we ourselves have received.  That's what it means when we say that we stand within a tradition, within a community of faith; and that tradition, that community of faith, dates back to the discovery that first Easter morning that the tomb is empty.

For the second thing I want to point out in that brief interchange between the Bishop and the candidate for ordination is found in the candidate's answer.  Remember that the Bishop has asked about "the doctrines", plural; and, of course, we have a lot of those.  We might suppose that he has in mind the Doctrine of the Incarnation, or the Doctrine of the Trinity; always fun for a Bishop who wants to test out a nervous candidate for confirmation!  But the reply by the candidate does not mention either of those doctrines explicitly.  The candidate promises, not to teach the Doctrine of the Trinity, but to "witness to Christ crucified and risen".

In other words, the nub of all the doctrines of the faith as this Church has received them is Christ crucified and risen.  The phrase, of course, comes from St Paul, and today we draw on his justly famous writing on the resurrection, found in 1 Corinthians 15.  We remember that as far as we know St Paul never met Jesus of Nazareth, as the other apostles knew him.  He met the Risen Christ, and spent the rest of his life bearing "witness to Christ crucified and risen".  And he starts by making it clear that the resurrection of Jesus is a well-attested fact.  He is not talking about his own extraordinary experience alone, as if it was entirely unique: rather he emphasises that he was merely one of over 500 people who experienced an encounter with the Risen Christ; some of which are recorded in the gospels.

But notice what else he says.  He does not say that he has reflected on all these experiences, and this is his suggestion as to what they all mean.  He says: I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  And then he goes on to say this: For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures... and then he lists the various people to whom the Risen Christ appeared.

And there we have that word "receive": from the very beginning, remembering that St Paul is writing to the Corinthians within 20 years of Christ's death, we have a clear tradition, clear doctrine, that he has already received and is passing on to them.

Our second reading affords the same evidence of this foundation tradition, for it contains one of the earliest sermons from the same apostolic period.  Peter is teaching some new converts and gives a sort of "story so far" summary to them.  He includes this: "They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead and caused him to be seen."  Long before the gospels were written, Peter and Paul and the other apostles were passing on the doctrines of the faith as this Church has received them, so that today we can say with them it is our duty and our joy to witness to Christ crucified and risen.

And it all began because of the truth of Easter Day.  To be honest, part of today's gospel reading is a bit tedious and contrived.  The author is at pains to try to establish the primacy of the other disciple over Peter; and so we have these rather boyish and silly details about who ran the fastest, who got there first, who saw what and who understood most.  But the essential details are there.  Above all, no one expected what had happened.  Mary Magdalene had witnessed the crucifixion and the burial.  Confronted by the shock of the empty tomb she wailed, not with joy at the thought of the resurrection because such a thought never crossed her mind.  She cried in frustration because the body had been taken away and she now had no place to grieve.

Then the Good Shepherd who calls each one of his sheep by name called her name, and she knew his voice.  The rest, as we say, is history.

And I say, it is true.  Christ is risen!  Alleluia!

Truth and Reconciliation

Texts: Acts 3:12-19; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48

I talked last week about what Rowan Williams has called "the pattern of resurrection appearances", in which, as he points out, the Risen Christ appears to the guilty.  He appears to his own hand-picked disciples who were guilty of abandoning him when the crunch came.  He appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, who was guilty of persecuting Christ's followers (and therefore Christ himself).  And when Peter and the other disciples begin their public preaching, they start by reminding their audience that they, too, are responsible for having Jesus put to death.

But what we might expect to follow never does.  We expect condemnation: we expect the one who was murdered to demand, at the very least, an apology, if not retribution.  But we find no hint of such an attitude in the resurrection stories.  The guilty are confronted with their guilt, but then they are encouraged to move on.  The disciples are commissioned for ministry.  Saul is sent to a particular house where he will be told what to do.  Peter tells his audience to repent and be baptised.  At the heart of these stories – at the heart of Easter – is not revenge, punishment, getting even, or anything of that kind.  At the heart of Easter is truth and reconciliation.

And this last week has been a good time to ponder that phrase as I continued to reflect on these resurrection stories in the light of three particular things.  First, Trish and I joined with a huge gathering in St John's, Roslyn for the funeral of our friend, Richard Sutton.  Richard was a highly distinguished lawyer, retiring as Dean of the Faculty of Law here in Dunedin.  Like all lawyers, Richard loved to argue; but unlike many lawyers he did so without raising his voice or wagging his finger, and without anything less than complete respect for those on the other side of the argument.  Richard was also a fine chess player, having won the New Zealand championship no less than three times and gaining the status of international master.  He was competitive and enjoyed winning.  Yet if his defeated opponent ever asked for advice Richard would immediately give it.  In the tribute from the chess community it was noted that Richard was equally gracious whether he won or not.

He was, said, a close friend, "irenic".  That's an unusual word today; and I don't think I have ever before heard it used in a eulogy.  But it exactly fits Richard – he was a man of peace.  He sought always the truth of any matter he was involved in, but he always finished an argument reconciled with his opponents.

It was fitting that Richard's funeral was on St George's Day, as he was English by birth; but to me it was even more fitting that his funeral coincided with the South African General Elections.  Of course, there is still a lot wrong with that country.  There is an HIV epidemic, aggravated by the previous president's blind refusal to acknowledge it.  There is rampant crime, a huge gap between rich and poor, and corruption in the highest places in the land.

But South Africa is also the country that gave the world the wonderful example of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose guiding spirit, of course, was that marvellous servant of the Church, Archbishop Tutu.  That whole exercise was about uncovering the dark deeds of the Apartheid Years, bringing them into the light, confronting the guilty with their guilt, and then promoting reconciliation between the offenders and their victims.  We have all marvelled at the grace and forgiveness shown by Nelson Mandela; but equally impressive is the way in which his example has flowed out into the country through the work of that Commission.  No one has been punished by the Commission; they have been confronted with their guilt, and then invited to be part of the new community.  That's exactly the resurrection pattern Rowan Williams talks about.  It is Easter in action.

And all this has prompted me to ponder the third event this week, our own Anzac Day commemoration.  What's that about?  How does that fit with the Easter story?  We talk about Anzac Day "services", but are they religious services, or are they something else?  And are they about truth and reconciliation or not?  Over the years I have been asked to speak at some Anzac services, to lead the prayers or to give a blessing at others; and I have never been quite sure what is and what is not okay to say on such occasions.  Are they Christian services or not?  Are they occasions for telling the truth – for acknowledging before God our own guilt in waging war – for facing our guilt and being reconciled with our enemies or not?

I still don't know.  But one year in Kawhia I took a big risk.  I said it was time to strip our Anzac commemorations of the religious language we have wrapped around it.  I said I thought it was quite wrong to say of our fallen that they had laid down their lives for their country.  They did no such thing.  In the vast majority of cases they had their lives taken from them by the cruelties of war.  They did not want to die, for their country or otherwise.  They hoped to return home alive.  Most of them who died had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; they were aboard a ship that was sunk, an aircraft that was shot down, or in the line of fire when a bullet came their way.  When we use our religious language, when we talk of such men and women laying down their lives, we are denying them the truth of their deaths.  They were murdered by their enemies, just as Jesus was murdered by his, even though he did choose to die rather than escape or fight back.

And the same is true of those on the other side.  The Allies murdered their enemies.  Our people bombed men, women and children in Dresden and Tokyo, and of course in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just as surely as our enemies bombed London and Coventry, Plymouth and Sheffield.  But after the war, only one side was held to account; the winners put the losers on trial.  No one can deny the guilt of those who were convicted at Nuremberg or Tokyo; but no one can assert the innocence of those who bombed the great cities of Germany and Japan.   Are we yet ready to acknowledge our guilt on Anzac Day or any other?

Jesus put no one on trial.  He came back to the guilty, showed them the damage that had been done to his hands and feet, the scars of the war they had waged against him, and said, "Peace be with you".  He is the true irenic man whose example our friend Richard followed so faithfully.  He is the author of all truth and reconciliation, whose example the great leaders of South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu, followed so faithfully.   He is our Lord and our God who says to his followers, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your Father in heaven", which, of course, is precisely what St John said we are in our second lesson.

When we exchange the Peace, all this is what should be in our hearts and our minds as we do so; for the Risen Christ is among us as surely as he was among those guilty apostles that first Easter night.  He is not interested in whether or not our hands are cold.  He wants to know only that our hearts are warm, towards him and to one another.

He seeks truth and reconciliation here in our midst today and every day.  Amen.