Alleluia, Christ is Risen.
Today the Church celebrates new life: the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. This is an event of global, of cosmic significance. Because Christ has been raised, those who belong to Christ will share his resurrection. Because Christ has been raised, life triumphs over death. Because Christ has been raised our lives are lived today in the horizon of eternity and love.
Amid all the turmoil in the world at in recent weeks, two news stories stand out as we proclaim this resurrection. The first story is about outer space. The second is about inner space.
The outer space story is not the one about Katy Perry and four other women who made an eleven-minute journey in the Blue Origin rocket to the very edge of space. It is the story of the discovery made by a team of scientists in another place about the possibility of some kind of life on Planet K218 1B.
K218 1B is 700 trillion miles from Earth, 124 light years away. Professor Madhusudhan and his team have analysed the light signature of the planet. They have detected signs of molecules which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms such as algae. This light signature has been detected by the James Webb Space Telescope, itself a miracle of engineering, sent a million miles out into space way beyond the moon.
There are many questions still about the results. But potentially they give the clearest answer yet as to whether life on earth is the only biological life in this vast, possibly infinite universe. All kinds of claims are being made about the implications for humanity and for faith.
But here’s the thing. The discovery is remarkable. But it reminds us this morning of how vanishingly, impossibly rare life is in the vastness of the universe. At the very most, it looks as though our nearest living neighbours may be 700 trillion miles from Earth and are likely to be at best, plankton. Far from the rich variety of alien life imagined by Star Trek, we inhabit a largely barren universe.
Only on Earth are the full wonders of life: skies full of insects and birds; oceans and rivers teeming with fish; forests with trees which live for hundreds of years; mangos and bananas; fruits of every kind. Farms and gardens bursting with life from the seas of Antarctica to the jungles of Borneo. The further we reach out into space, the more remarkable the Earth is revealed to be. Katy Perry chose her song well in space: I think to myself what a wonderful world.
In a few minutes time we will proclaim our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed, first crafted 1700 years ago. These same words will be said or sung all across our world on this Easter Day. We will dare to proclaim that we are not here by accident or chance. That Almighty God is maker of the heavens and the earth. That the Son of God took flesh and became a single human person. That he was crucified. That on the third day he rose again. That he will return to judge the living and the dead. That his kingdom will have no end. We will declare together our faith in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life and our hope of resurrection.
The life of our world is infinitely precious, held in love by Almighty God who fills all things with his grace and who sends his Son to this world full of life so that even death might be defeated and reversed and conquered.
According to the gospels, the resurrection of Jesus happens in a garden, a new Eden project. Mary Magdalene comes to grieve, bringing spices to anoint the body of Jesus. In the first light of dawn, she sees first the stone rolled away. She runs to tell Simon Peter. Simon Peter and the beloved disciple run to the tomb. They see the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth which covered Jesus headed rolled up in a place by itself. Signs of an orderly departure.
Simon Peter and the beloved disciple leave Mary alone in the garden. There is a gentleness then to the discovery which will transform Mary’s life. She looks first into the tomb and sees and hears two angels who ask here “Woman why are you weeping?” She turns and sees Jesus but her mind will not admit the truth that it can be him. “Woman why are you weeping?” Jesus the gardener asks, tenderly.
Mary’s love is evident in her answer. But then Jesus speaks her name: Mary. Life and light break through the grief and tears. She turned and said to him in Hebrew: Rabbouni, which means teacher. Jesus gives her a commission – to be the first apostle, to bear witness to the disciples: I have seen the Lord.
There is such a deep humanity in the story, such a complex understanding of grief and its reversal which enables Mary to speak to us directly and invite us into the same experience of faith and trust in which sorrow is turned to joy; despair to hope and life to death. In just this one encounter we witness the depth of what it means to be human.
The message of resurrection will go out from this garden through Mary’s witness and will transform the entire world, Easter by Easter, and today this message comes afresh to all of us.
In all of this vast and ancient and barren universe, or the fraction we can see, there is one planet where Almighty God has made a garden full of life for just a few thousand years of history, a moment in the long story of creation. In this garden of life, God has made humanity in God’s own image to wonder and to love and to know God’s grace. When we fall and wander from that grace, God sends his Son for the sake of the whole cosmos, to share this planet for a lifetime, to reveal the best of what humanity can be, to give his life for the sins of the whole world. In one moment in time, in one place, a garden within a garden, death has been conquered and new life is offered to the world, perhaps in time to all worlds.
And so we come finally to my second news story not about outer space but inner space. The healing and mending of human hearts. The research which was published just last week by the Bible Society which tells of the Quiet Revival. An unseen turning of the tide of faith in our land. The unexpected 50% increase over six years of those who claim to attend Christian worship at least one each month, an increase led by the young and most evident among younger men. A profound search for meaning in the growing outward and inner deserts of the world. Life in all its fulness.
Last night in this Cathedral we witnessed the confirmation of four young adults, signs of this new thirst for faith and meaning and this turning back to Christ.
Hear the testimony of the Church today in creeds and songs and lives transformed. Hear the gentle call of Jesus to come to him, the Way, the Truth and the Life and follow.
The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.
