Sermon for Easter Day

Sunday 27th March 2005

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

My diary is probably a lot like other diaries that you have; apart from the fact that it’s a mess! Like your diary, when you open it up, you’ll see that the first day of the week is Monday! It goes right through the week on the two pages, and Saturday and Sunday are squeezed in at the end. In fact, Sunday is a tiny portion of the whole week.

I think I need a different kind of diary! Because when people come home on a Friday, after a hard week’s work, many say, as it’s said in our family, ‘Oh, thank goodness it’s Friday’. And there is a lovely Friday feeling. Especially when Friday evening has always been, traditionally a parish night off, which I’ve always thought was a good idea. But then it occurs to me, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s Friday already! It’s only starting!’ I seem to be working the opposite way round to everyone one else! The moment Friday comes, everybody’s off enjoying themselves and I’m beginning to sweat over sermons and services!

I often think of what Billy Graham once said, that the Christian life is not a decision like a ‘Y’ in the road. Rather the Christian is actively going in the opposite direction of everybody else. I sometimes feel like that. And when Sunday gets squeezed in at the end of the week, it’s annoying because far from being the end of the week, it is, of course the first day of the week! The day to begin the week on! If I’m not mistaken, I think the early Christians celebrated both the Sabbath and the Sunday, and maybe that was the very beginning of what we now call the ‘Weekend’.

In confirmation classes, when we’re looking at the Ten Commandments, and the clear emphasis there on the observance of the Sabbath Day, and how important it all is, the last day in the week when God rested from all his creating, the Saturday, I would ask them, ‘Then why do we go to Church on the Sunday?’ And for a moment or two, they’re a bit flummoxed! Sunday, of course, is Resurrection Day! The first day of the week. Every Sunday we celebrate that!

Do you know that half the people of the United Kingdom do not know what Christians celebrate at Easter? Then that’s an awful lot of people who don’t know why we go to church on a Sunday. You see, it’s not so cool. It’s not fashionable. And, believe it or not, as Michael Green has said, ‘that counts against him more than any arguments’.

I wish you could have all seen the number of cool teenagers who were here last week during our Easter Holiday Club. The Church hall was a mess, and I wondered would it ever be the same again, but you can have a look at it now, and it’s perfect. These guys are incredibly up-front about their faith. It’s their life, and they are not backward in coming forward about it all. The fact that it seems to fly in the face of what most everybody else is doing, doesn’t phase them at all. They’re more than happy to go against the general flow! They are truly the cool guys who are not scared to stand out from the crowd.

I find that very refreshing. I’ve nothing but admiration for them. They do it all because they love it, and because they love their Lord. I wish we could all be a bit more honest and up-front about our faith. And, I know we can learn a lot from them. On television ads and film Sunday is never portrayed as a day you actually go to Church. The so-called cool factor, as far as the youth media is concerned doesn’t exist.

Easter Day is a happy day anyway, but on this subject of being honest, it’s no harm to have a laugh as well...

A police officer pulled over a speeding car. (Most of us know the feeling!) “You were speeding at least 75 in a 50 mile an hour zone”. “No”, the driver replied, “ I must have been only going 60”.
“Oh, Harry”, his wife said, “you must have been doing 80, at least!” The man gave her a dirty look.
“I’m also going to have to give you a ticket for a broken tale light” said the officer.
“Broken tail light? I didn’t know I had a broken tail light!” exclaimed the man.
“Oh, Harry, you’ve known about that tail light for ages,” said his wife, who got another dirty look.
“I’m also going to have to give you a citation for not wearing your seat belt,” said the officer. “ Oh, but I
just took it off when you were walking up to the car,” protested the man.
“Oh, Harry,” said his wife, “you never wear your seat belt!”
Exasperated, the man turned to his wife and yelled, “Would you please shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you!”
And the police officer turned to the woman and asked, “Ma’am, does your husband talk to you this way all the time?”
“No, officer,” she said, “Only when he’s drunk.”

When it comes to what we believe, and why we come to church on a Sunday, and especially on Easter Day, we need to be more up-front and honest.
Do you not think so?

The real cool people are those who are not afraid to go against the general flow. They are the ones being honest to their faith, because it means so much to them. And I admire them for it. I wish we could all be a bit more brave like them!