31/03/2026
A thought provoking sermon for Easter Sunday, by Tom Kennar, of St Faithful's.
One of the things I rather love about Easter is that the four Gospels don’t give us one neat, polished, legally notarised resurrection account. They give us four. Four witnesses, four tellings, four ‘angles’ if you like. And when you put them side by side, they do not click neatly together - like a flat-pack wardrobe from heaven.
They wobble.
Who got there first? Was it Mary Magdalene alone, or with others? Was the stone already rolled away, or rolled away before their eyes? Was there one angel, two angels, a young man, an earthquake, silence, running, terror, joy? Read the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, to see what I mean. If you are looking for CCTV footage, Easter is not ideal. But if you are looking for something deeper than mere reporting, Easter is where things get interesting.
Is the Easter story a conspiracy? By the followers of Jesus, writing their tales between 30 and 60 years after these events? I don’t think so. Because the differences do not really suggest a conspiracy. Conspiracies are tidier than this. What these stories have is the breathlessness of people trying to describe something that burst their categories. They are saying: something happened here that changed everything.
Matthew, being Matthew, tells it with proper drama. There is an earthquake. Of course there is. Matthew never seems fully satisfied unless creation itself is heaving with birth pangs. In Matthew’s account, an angel descends like lightning. The guards shake and become like dead men — which is one of the Bible’s loveliest reversals: the living become like the dead, while the dead man turns out to be alive.
And then comes the angel’s message to the women: “Do not be afraid.” Which is always the first thing that angels say to humans… because heaven seems aware of the effect it has on us. Do not be afraid. He is not here; for he has been raised.
Then, in Matthew’s account, Jesus meets them and says, magnificently, “Greetings!” It is wonderfully understated. Death has been defeated, the universe has tilted on its axis — and Jesus sounds like a man arriving slightly late to a church coffee morning. ‘Oh, hiya, folks’.
But perhaps that is the point. Resurrection in the Gospels is never just spectacle. It is personal. Jesus is not raised as an idea. He is raised as himself: the one who taught, touched, forgave, annoyed, provoked and loved. The one the empire thought it had dealt with. The one that his friends thought, by Friday evening, had come to a dreadful end.
And that is why Easter matters, even before we settle exactly what we think happened.
Because let us be honest: on Easter Day, churches contain all sorts. There are some who say the creed with complete confidence. There are others who say it with hope and questions. Others mouth it while raising a quizzical eyebrow and muttering, “I beg your pardon?” Some place their eternal hope in the literal resurrection of Jesus. Others cannot quite make that leap, but cannot quite let Jesus go either.
And that is not a modern problem. The first Easter was not experienced by people saying, “Ah yes, this fits my worldview beautifully.” It was experienced by mourners. By women carrying embalming spices — which is not, let us note, the equipment list of optimists. They were going to a tomb. Their hopes were dead. Their leader was dead. Their future, as far as they could see, was dead.
Easter begins there.
So whatever you believe can honestly be said in a scientific and literary-critical age, Easter still comes with this announcement: the worst thing is never the last thing. The powers that crush, mock, silence and kill do not get the final word. Love is not crushed. Truth is not erasable. Life is not defeated.
As the old saying goes, ‘You can’t keep a good man down.’
And not just in the shallow sense in which people say it about celebrities who survive three farewell tours and a tax investigation. Easter means that in Jesus we see a life so aligned with God, so full of compassion, so stubbornly truthful, that even when the world does its worst, it cannot finally master him. It cannot silence him.
Good Friday says: this is the worst that world can do to Love.
Easter says: this is what Love does when the world has done its worst.
That is good news for believers. But it is also good news for sceptics. Because even if you struggle with miracle language, Easter still asks: what would it mean to live as though cruelty is not ultimate? The violence will not have the final word. That earthly power may shake the earth, but the earth will stand firm. What would it mean to live as though goodness can be buried, but not kept buried?
The world has its own gospel. It says: be realistic. Trim your ideals. Don’t love too much. Don’t forgive too much. Don’t tell the truth if it will cost you. The world says ‘might is right’. All problems can be solved with a missile, or a crucifixion. The world says the rich and the powerful will always win.
Good Friday seems to prove all that.
Easter says it is a lie.
Not that goodness always wins quickly. But the heart of Easter is joyful defiance: the life of Jesus is more durable than the systems that killed him. He still speaks today – while no-one remembers the words of Caesar, or Caiaphas the High Priest.
So this Easter, whether you come with certainty or scepticism, hear the proclamation anyway. Christ is risen. (He is risen indeed, Alleluia!). The good man they tried to put down is not finished. The God of Love they tried to silence still speaks. The life they tried to crush still moves among us. He still speaks among us, through Scripture and through lives poured out in service.
And if that is true, then despair need not run the show. Fear need not be obeyed.
You can’t keep a good man down. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed, Alleluia!)
