Mark 16.1-8

John 20.1-9

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

The exsultet,  one of the most ancient hymns of the church which calls on the whole of creation to rejoice in the resurrection, is sung around the world at the first service of Easter, as it has been since at least the fourth century.  It proclaims the holiness of this night.  It anchors us and impels us to celebrate the Christ bursting from the grave “This is the night when Jesus Christ vanquished hell, broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.  This is the night when all who believe in him are freed from sin, restored to grace and holiness, and share the victory of Christ.”

Because of this night, Jesus, freed from the grave, will never be confined again.  He seeks to free us from the graves in which we find ourselves, he meets us unexpectedly along the ordinary paths of our lives.  We will each have chains which bind– perhaps its fear, anxiety, guilt, self-doubt, uncertainty, insecurity, it could be many things.  Christ calls us to newness of life, but first we have to die to those things that hold us back, that bind us.  If Jesus is calling us to new life and we are intent on holding on to our fear, or whatever it is that binds you, Christ will never be able to lead us to a future of hope.

Christ is in the unexpected places, the parts of our souls where we which we may not even want to acknowledge to ourselves, let alone to anyone else.  Christ is found in unexpected people – those we find difficult, those who are very different from us, those who are poor and marginalised.

The exsultet reminds us that on this night we, and the whole creation are freed from that which binds us, freed to live new life in Christ – “Christ has conquered! Now his life and glory fill you”.

John 18

After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’, they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus answered, ‘I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.’ This was to fulfil the word that he had spoken, ‘I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.’ 

My nearest experience to that of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane dates back to my City business days.  I was the managing director of a PR consultancy, and that particular week, I knew that something was up.  My fellow directors – my friends – started to act strangely.  They probably had before but I had not noticed – and the tension grew as the week evolved.  We were scheduled to have a board meeting on the Thursday afternoon, and I had a real sense of foreboding.  The few hours before the meeting were agony, and I spent them in a quasi second state, readying myself for the worst.  As the meeting started, it was obvious that it would end badly, and indeed it did.  I was escorted from the boardroom to my office to collect my personal belongings and then to the door, and on to the street.  I had founded the company three years before.

In the season of Lent, we have reflected on our wilderness, and today, we see the culmination of what it means for Jesus – the lonely furrow of the leader, teaching, preaching, healing, gathering community and trying to impart a sense of the unconditional love of God to a people hungry for it, and to church leaders fearful of losing control.  The inevitable development to his ministry is sacrifice and death, that the world may live.

As we go today from the garden of sorrows to the cross at Golgotha, we are reminded that the Christian journey is not easy, and indeed often costly in ways that we may not imagine. But after death, we have hope.  And so as we watch the body of Jesus being taken down from the cross to his tomb, a place of finality and endings, we know that this is not God’s final word.  And so we watch, and wait.

Bertrand Olivier
Vicar, All Hallows by the Tower 

John 13.3-9

And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table,^* took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ 

In a world where it often feels that people are out for themselves, the call to service, to servant-hood, seems to turn on its head a very normal human response.   Peter, Jesus’ muddleheaded, yet ultimately faithful disciple, is deeply uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus might wash his feet, and when he’s rebuked by Jesus, he overdoes it by saying he wants to wash everything.  The very act of washing feet gives some people the heebie-jeebies.  It’s an intimate gesture of friendship, of servanthood and of respect.  One of the most moving moments in my 11 years of ordained ministry was on a Maundy Thursday, the day the church remembers Jesus’ action.  The local big-issue seller, whose pitch was between my house and the church, was one of the twelve people to have their feet washed.  His socks were full of holes, his toenails yellowing and twisted, his feet reflecting the hard life he’d had on the street.  He was so moved by someone else demonstrating to him that he had worth, and we were all moved too that he had accepted our love and care that night.  I’ll never forget it.

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, ‘Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’ So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’ Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the festival’; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

John 13.21-32

Throughout our Lenten journeys, we have shared our experience of wilderness, and we have sought to describe the presence or absence of God in the midst of it.  As we read this passage describing a moment in Jesus’ last supper, I wonder how Judas felt.  Having been part of this close knit community of friends for some time, all gathered around a very charismatic leader, what would it feel like to be singled out by the leader as the one who was going to betray him and lead him to his death?  Where was God in Judas’ wilderness at that particular point?

Some commentators argue that without Judas, there would not have been a story, and one can only wonder whether Jesus tests his loyalty to the end by asking him to betray him – a suggestion Judas follows and then bitterly regrets, as he also chooses his own death.  Is Judas the betrayer or is he being betrayed too into something he did not anticipate, into a narrative much greater than he ever thought?  Can there be harmony without betrayal? Can there be light without darkness?  Can there be resurrection without death?

Our own wilderness may have included experiences of betrayal – big or small, through action or through omission and silence – both as a victim and perpetrator.  Today, with Judas,  we acknowledge the wilderness this creates for others and ourselves, and ask God for the grace to overcome our own frailty.