It started as a whisper – a rumour shared by women.
Pictures of him bursting from the tomb and Handel’s Hallelujah chorus are a later addition to the narrative.
That first Easter morning, when death was defeated and eternity shifted, almost passed unnoticed. A confused visit to a now empty tomb and word spoken quietly in garden to Mary Magdalene and the rumour was out.
But it didn’t get that far, at least not as far as you might imagine given the enormity of the occasion.
Why? Because, just like most of us, the disciples were shut up in a room. Locked away except for quick dashes out when the women’s tale seemed ridiculous or – as Thomas seemed to have done that evening – popping out for an essential errand.
Just like that first Easter, resurrection morning in 2020 dawns on a people shut away in their own homes.
Resurrection was announced quietly to a group of women and men who were locked away for their own safety. For them, it wasn’t a virus that threatened their lives but the possibility of a knock at the door from the Roman guard or the Temple police.
And it took time for the whispered rumour to become a spoken reality. And even longer for it to be shouted from the rooftops.
In their fear and concern, the first witnesses found it too hard to believe at first. Caught up in their grief and fear, the reality of the resurrection took a while to sink in.
I wonder how that resurrection news feels to you this morning? How has your weekend been so far? Being shut in our homes, even for our own good, plays with our emotions.
This weekend I have spoken to people who struggling with raft of emotions and grief that life has piled on them. Isolation makes bereavement and loneliness so much worse.
And to people who are fine, but bored. Or rather enjoying the weather and the garden. Who have caught up on unfinished projects, or are finding a new rhythm and a new way to worship. To people who are connecting in new and wonderful ways with modern technology – and who can see the rainbow through the rain.
However we are feeling, this is a strange Easter indeed.
But if we listen carefully, we too might hear the rumour of resurrection. The possibility of news that might just be true – that, despite all the evidence and all the fear and all the locks, death has been defeated. That Christ is risen, our expectations are confounded, our hopes restored and possibilities for a new way of living, a new kingdom, creeping in at the edges.
It started with a whisper, and the news spread until the whole creation shouted. Christ is risen, Christ is risen, Christ is risen.
Wherever your emotions are, wherever you are hunkering down this Easter, may you hear the whisper and pass it on. After Easter, nothing is ever quite the same again.
A sermon for Easter Day 2020, in the midst of the COVID19 lockdown
Musings of a Maverick Priest 