A Sent People Easter 2024

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again, Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’ (John 20:19-23)

A prayer from the heart:

I want to thank you, Lord, for being close to me so far this day. With your help I haven’t been impatient, lost my temper, been grumpy, judgemental or envious of anyone. But Lord, I will be getting out of bed in a moment, and I might just be needing  your help from then on. Amen.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We celebrate the wonder and joy of the Resurrection. Jesus is alive! But if our faith is to have any worth, it must surely affect the way that we live. At the end of our service we are sent out: Go, in love and peace to serve the Lord.

Knowledge, by itself, wonderful though it may be, doesn’t actually change anything. If you want to bring about change in the world, you need to apply your knowledge – use it to bring about action.  Or as James puts it in his letter: ‘Don’t just hear the word of the Lord, do what it says.’ (James 1:22)

Jesus said, ‘If you love me, keep my commandments. The Easter story affirms the truth of the resurrection. We need that truth. But, as God’s Easter people, we are challenged to live in a way that puts God at the centre of our lives, and to live that faith in words and in deeds.

In short - you’ve got the faith, now do something with it. Live his risen life.

As a Christian pastor for most of my adult life, many people have said to me over the years, ‘Faith is a private matter. I know what I believe, but I keep it private. I don’t let it affect what I do or how I relate to other people.’

Really? Is that a genuine faith?

Faith does not come to us in a compartment marked, 'Open only on Sundays'. As disciples of Jesus Christ, our calling is to discover our God-given potential to go out and love and serve God in all that we do. We have a life-transforming message to offer. When Jesus meets his disciples in the upper room, he doesn’t pass round the Easter eggs and tell them to sit down and relax. He commands them to go. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  Of course, it’s essential that we should gather as Christ's body, but we do that in order to learn how to live for God in the big wide world. We meet to pray and worship, to feed upon the truth of God’s word. We respond to God's love as we come together around the Lord's Table, sharing in the bread and the wine as we remember the story of salvation. We pray that God will touch us, set us on fire with love for him, inspire us to new heights of love and adoration. How important that we listen to one another, support one another other, encourage one another, and when necessary, exhort one another to take it seriously. Are we prepared to go the extra mile; to offer our shirt when our neighbour asks for our coat; to forgive our brother, not just once, not twice, not even seven times, but seventy times seven times; to be active in seeking to make disciples? Having met together, then we go – sent out prepared and equipped to serve God in the world.

As we enter the season of Easter, the challenge for us is to live out our resurrection faith.

When Jesus was teaching his disciples he taught them the most simple lesson of all time - the most simple, and yet one of the hardest to do: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, as I have loved you. By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love, one for another.” (John 13:34)

This teaching suggests to me that his disciples didn’t find it easy to love each other. Jesus had to spell it - love one another.

He looked around the group of disciples sitting around him and said, ‘prove that you’re my disciples by loving each other’. That’s the test. Isn’t that what Paul meant when he described the Body of Christ? The test of our faith is quite simply, how well can we love and support each other? And that leads to the next question – how can we offer this immense love to the world around us?

So easily, we get distracted by noticing the faults in others, or the problems involved in sharing this good news, when the only question that really counts is: ‘What about me? How can I put Christ’s love into practice?’ And the answer that each one of us finds to that question will determine how effective the church can be. ‘By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.’

Living out our resurrection faith is about more than reciting the right formulas – essential though those formulas are; it’s about more than learning the Bible off by heart; it’s about more than volunteering for the church cleaning rota, the Sunday School team, the PCC, or even offering yourself for full-time ministry - it’s about living out our resurrection faith in simple love; being part of a caring community; working together for a common good; striving to ignore the demands of pride, and aspiring to a simple life of humble service to God.

It may sound daunting. It is daunting. But when Jesus sends his disciples out, he gives them another reassurance. He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’

We are not alone. We are not sent off like hopeless victims, ready to be chewed up by the world and spat out. We are filled with the Spirit of God. God is with us.

We have all the power and the resources of our heavenly Father to call upon. With God, nothing is impossible.

Paul tells the Philippians: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

So, as we share our common faith in the wonder of the resurrection, let’s never forget that we are sent: go in love and peace to live his risen life - in our hearts, in our homes, in our church, in our community.