From chapter 10 of The Acts of the Apostles, ‘You know the message of God sends to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all…. we are witnesses to all that he has done.’
Some years ago, when I walked the Camino to Santiago de Compostela, I struck up a friendship with a Dutch man of about my age who was also walking at about the same pace as me and though we didn’t walk side-by-side, we did seem to end up in the same bar in the same towns most evenings and with another small group of pilgrims we chatted and got to know each other.
All of us were walking for a reason.
Chris, my Dutch friend, was walking to find God.
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He wasn’t a believer, but, like so many people in our world today – and we know at the moment that there is wonderfully an increase in people coming to church, particularly young people – but like so many people searching, feeling rudderless and adrift – wanting to believe, and Chris had somehow convinced himself that walking to Santiago would enable him to find God.
The last time I saw him was in a crowded street in Santiago itself.
We had arrived.
We had been to Mass in the great Roman Catholic Basilica.
We had gone for a very lovely meal afterwards.
We had, I think, drunk quite a bit of wine.
Chris was downcast and disillusioned.
He had walked to Santiago. 700 or 800 miles. But he hadn’t found God. And I’m slightly cross with myself that I hadn’t said this that I am about to say to you, to him on the road, but as we stood in the street I found myself saying that the God I knew and worshiped, the God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, the one who in his dying on the cross had shared in and plumbed the depths of what it is to be human, including the very particular human horror of death itself, and the one whom God had raised from the dead, isn’t to be found in, or restricted to, or especially present, in one place. Or at least not in one place so much more than any other place. Or at least not in any place that is one step away from where you are now, or for that matter hundreds of miles away at the end of a long pilgrimage.
Ours is a scandalously particular God, who was, in Jesus, somewhere in his earthly life and ministry, so that he could be everywhere in his risen life. And by the power of his Spirit, which can and will and does make him so available that, sisters and brothers, God is either present here and now in every step, or maybe not really present at all.
Or to put it more simply, God doesn’t live in Santiago. Or York Minster. Or Jerusalem. Or any other number of places.
The Archbishop addressed crowds outside the Minster (Image: Provided) God is not the light at the end of the tunnel of a very long journey. Not waiting for you in some so-called holy place. God is not the subject of a quest. Not the answer to a problem.
All your votive candles and even all your prayers, cannot conjure God up. Nor your extravagant penance. Nor your thousand-mile pilgrimages.
And, yes, we often experience God as being more present in certain places, holy places, beautiful landscapes, York Minster, but actually and truly, God, who is the source of everything, is either present in your next step and the next breath you are about to take now, or, I think, there is no God.
And even these special places that are particular, point beyond themselves.
So, while Chris was waiting to find God somewhere else, he may have missed the God, who like those first pilgrims on the road to Emmaus, was actually by his side all the time.
‘He is not here’ is the enigmatic message of the first Easter day. ‘He is risen.’
Which does not mean he is somewhere else. It means his presence is no longer limited by space and time. He is no longer only available to some people in certain places. Sisters and brothers, he is waiting for you, longing for you, yearning for you, loving you in your next step and in your next breath. In everything unexpected.
Therefore, even when Mary Magdalene finds him and tries to hold onto him, as we heard in today’s beautiful gospel story, Jesus reproves her saying, ‘Do not cling to me.’
In the same way the disciples who find him at Emmaus, also find him quickly evading their grasp.
The message of Easter is therefore that Christ is here and can be found in surprising places – in broken bread, in a breakfast by the beach, and behind closed doors – but he is not always recognised. And you may only recognise him if you are looking for him right now. In front of you. Not somewhere else.
He is at your side. Now.
He is in the breaking of the bread that we will share this morning. Here.
He is behind all the doors you close, waiting to show you the wounds of his suffering love.
He is waiting in all who are hungry and all who are excluded from justice.
He cries out in the voices of the hungry, the oppressed, the abused and the vulnerable. He is waiting for us to greet him.
You can find God. But you need to let God look for you. You need to see God where God is, and be with God and for God where God wants us to be. You need to ask God to open your eyes now.
Jesus is just as likely to be found in the beggar who sits outside the door of the church as in the building itself.
But do not cling to him.
He is going to ‘my God and your God, to my Father and your Father’, and in these words that Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene, we have, of course, an echo of the ‘Our Father’, and the vital importance of that little word ‘our’. We belong to each other and we find God together.
Because, as I also tried to explain to Chris, you may never find God in the way you want to find God, but here is the question, will you let God find you and put you in a new relationship with your neighbour and with the world, so that we can all start to see and serve God in each other?
And will you put your trust in the things of the Church, which means the making of the perpetual remembrance of Jesus in breaking bread; and breaking down walls and confessing our sins and failures, and listening to God’s Word and learning from the stories of Easter; trusting them, and not thinking that God is something you can define or contain, still less control or constrain.
God just isn’t where you want him to be. But God will lead you to where you must go.
And here I have one more amazing thing to share with you. It really is the golden thread of marzipan in the simnel cake, the olive in your martini and the reason to open the champagne.
God will put God’s heart in your heart. And this means that you become the place where God is encountered by others. People will find God in you and in the next steps of their lives that are alongside you. You will be God’s presence and you will work for the peace of God’s kingdom.
And this peace is so needed in a troubled world, a world that is so in danger of losing its moorings from that set of values that come from Jesus Christ. So precious, so important and so easily lost. Values of trust and compassion which bind us, one to another across the world and across barriers of difference. Without the peace of Christ our Risen Saviour, we are adrift. We are all at sea.
We need this peace. In our homes. In our streets. In our world. In Israel and Gaza. In Ukraine. In Myanmar. In Sudan. In the DRC. In all the places of conflict that convulse our world – and against the madness of a world which ‘others’ others, drives wedges between communities, breeds hatred and promotes greed.
Go into this world, says Jesus. Go into this world and be my presence. Be through the lives that you lead, lives of penitence, trust and compassion, be the place where I can be encountered. And make disciples. Build beautiful kingdoms of peace.
Sisters and brothers, Happy Easter! It begins here. Amen
