Heyward and Charlie really know how to throw the new guy into the center of parish life. Most curates in their first year don't get to preach on Easter. And so I find myself facing a daunting task. But I realized in preparing for this sermon that I don't need to understand the resurrection in order to believe it. For it is written of the Beloved Disciple "Then the other disciple…also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead." Like the Beloved Disciple, I don't need to understand the resurrection, but I do need to love it, for I could not believe in the resurrection if I did not first love it. If I did not love the resurrection, I would have no business preaching on it. But what should I say of this love, this resurrection?

I have heard many sermons on Easter. Most of these sermons focus on the disciples' awe, or Mary Magdalene's grief turned to joy, or of her unique role as Apostle to the Apostles. Other sermons focus on us, on our response to Easter and what it should be. All of these themes are important. But I have never heard a sermon on what Jesus says at his own resurrection. I would think it particularly important to pay attention to what Jesus says. For while it may not help us understand the resurrection any better than we already understand it, it does explain a little of why we are called to love the resurrection and to place it at the center of our faith.

Jesus says to Mary in the garden on that wonderful morning: "But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Of all the things Jesus could have instructed Mary to tell the disciples, this is what he says: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Why does he point forty days into the future, to his ascension? Why think of that now? Shouldn't we just focus on this amazing event? What does the ascension mean in relation to the resurrection? What do they have to do with each other?

As you know, I will be ordained a priest, and this year's confirmands will be confirmed as adult communicants of this church, forty days from now, on Ascension Day. If we take Easter Day and Ascension Day as two ends of one event, we can begin to see that they depend upon each other, and that each reveals the inherent meaning of the other. For the resurrection without an ascension lacks significance beyond the bizarre, and the ascension without a resurrection would be impossible. The point is that Jesus was resurrected in order to ascend, and that in his ascension, we are given the blessed hope of our own resurrections and ascensions.

The Greek fathers of the early Church put it something like this: The divinity came to share in our humanity so that humanity could come to share in divinity. That is, God loves us so much that God wants to share God's very life with us, and the way the Father chose to do this was through the resurrection and ascension of the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thereby, we are drawn into the very divine lovelife of the Holy Trinity itself. I love the resurrection because it shows God's love for us. I don't claim to understand the resurrection, nor can I fathom the depths of God's love, but I can respond in wonder, love, and praise to God's mighty deeds, among which the resurrection is the mightiest of all.

Wonder, love, and praise. When I contemplate the overwhelming abundance of God's love in Christ Jesus, I am moved to worship. Our worship this morning is by its very design a participation in the divine lovelife of the Holy Trinity. Our participation in God's life through worship translates into action in the world around us, in the reclamation of God's creation, in the proclamation that because of Jesus, his Father is our Father and his God is our God, and in the acclamation that because Jesus is risen, his Father and God is not only our Father and God alone, but the Father and God of all people.

"But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" This is the Easter message, from the mouth of the One without whom Easter would not be. But what is so special about this message? It is impossible to hear Jesus' words to Mary with first century ears, of course, but we can get a sense of the radical change in humanity's relationship with God that is indicated in the two words "your Father." Greek scholar Gerhard Kittel links the word for "Father" used in this passage to the Hebrew "Abba," the familiar term of endearment within a family, much like the English word "Daddy." As Kittel writes, Jesus "applies to God a term which must have sounded familiar and disrespectful to His contemporaries because used in the everyday life of the family. In other words, He uses the simple 'speech of the child to its father'… [Contemporary] Jewish usage shows how this Father-child relationship to God far surpasses any possibilities of intimacy assumed in Judaism, introducing indeed something which is wholly new."

Somewhat by contrast, Geoffrey Wainwright, the great liturgical scholar, writes "[Abba] was the word used from child to parent, from disciple to rabbi; it combines intimacy and respect, familiarity and esteem, affection and reverence. Jesus used the word to address God. Christians have the same privilege in worship. The word characterizes the whole relationship to which God is calling humanity and which believers already know. The mighty Creator also provides and cares for his creatures with a parent's love; the sovereign Lord wants children, not slaves."

Wainwright alludes in those last words to Galatians, and you may recall that three months ago, I preached on Paul's text: "But when the fulness of time had come, God sent his Son…so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God."

The message that Christ himself proclaims on Easter morning to the Apostle to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene, is one of intimacy with God, the Father, our Abba, by whom we are adopted in Christ's resurrection. So don't be fooled when Jesus says to Mary "Do not hold on to me," for many have misinterpreted those words as being distancing or cold, but they must be read in context: "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father." When Mary cries "Rabbouni," which means not just "Teacher" but "Beloved Teacher," she cries out in deep intimacy, and Jesus responds by telling her, in essence, that an even deeper intimacy awaits her. "But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Jesus asks Mary not to hold on to him not because he wants to be distant, but because if she holds on to her old image of Jesus, she will be unable to participate in the greater intimacy with him and with the Father that Jesus points to in the ascension.

"He saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead." "Say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" We don't need to understand the resurrection. We simply need to love it. And in loving it, we will be able to say with Mary Magdalene "I have seen the Lord!"

Alleluia. Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!