St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by the Reverend Bruce W. B. Jenneker on Easter Day, 23 March 2008, in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr in the City and Diocese of Cape Town

I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and I am sure that you do too. We are here on this Sunday, many more than usual, in the mode of high festivity with drums, trumpets and an excess of flowers because of our belief.

This confident and life-defining belief of mine and yours notwithstanding, what does it mean to believe in the Resurrection? What can intellectually honest persons of faith hold to be worthy of belief in it?

There are two sets of Resurrection stories in the Gospels: one set is about the empty tomb and the stone that was rolled away, the other set tells about the disciples' experience of their Risen Lord. There are many more stories about these appearances of Jesus to his friends, and these are considered by Biblical scholars to be older than the empty tomb stories.

To believe in the Resurrection is not the same sort of intellectual affirmation that is involved in knowing that the Big Hole is in Kimberley, that between the Diamond Rush of the 1870s and the closing of the mine in 1914 over 3 million tons of diamonds had been mined. Nor is believing in the Resurrection like knowing that the profits of excavations at Kimberley were not shared with those whose land was stolen and plundered by the speculators.

Believing in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ does not knowing or exploring any facts like these. Believing in the Resurrection is rather about taking on trust the testimony of those who experienced it. There is no proof. There is only testimony. There is no attested historical record. There is only witness. There is no guarantee. There is only the great risk of faith, daring, on the testimony of those who bear witness, to say with them, 'I believe.'

Wolfhart Pannenberg, the Polish-born German theologian, wrote in the 1970s. I was privileged to sit at his feet. Pannenberg is perhaps best known for his insightful and provocative book Jesus: God and Man in which he leads us into an understanding of Jesus – to use his words - 'from below,' deriving his dogmatic claims from a critical examination of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

For Pannenberg the meaning of Jesus, his life and teaching, his death and resurrection, can only be plumbed from the human perspective. We cannot see into the mind of God. The revelation we have received in the Gospels invites our engagement, reflection and probing. This careful study of the Gospels brings us within the remarkable orbit of the experience of the disciples, provides us with the possibility of uncovering their understanding of the Gospel events, and gives us access to their experience of Jesus Christ.

In Pannenberg's remarkable phrase, 'Jesus rose in the experience of the disciples.' This affirmation made my heart burn with faith when I first heard it, and indeed it kindles the fire of faith in me as I share it with you on this anniversary feast of our Lord's Resurrection. Pannenberg does not deny that the tomb was empty, the stone rolled away, and the angel's message to the women full of the promise of new life. He just doesn't find the resources for a contemporary faith there. Poetry he finds there, yes, and the words for our songs and praise. But it is in the experience of the disciples that Pannenberg finds the Resurrection.

And what was that experience? First meeting Jesus, then being called by him, then sharing his ministry, then coming to understand something his unique relationship with the God he called his Father and theirs, learning the vastness of his mission to save the world. All of that. And beyond it, they came to believe Jesus promises of God's unswerving fidelity and unconditional love. This was their experience of him.

But this was not the whole of their experience. There was their experience of the Jesus whom the religious authorities resented, despised and conspired to kill. There was their experience of his betrayal and passion – in which they were not bystanders. Jesus died in the experience of the disciples – and what the disciples offered was betrayal and denial, distancing and rejection. The disciples knew disappointment and despair, they acted with cowardice and without honour. This was the experience within which Jesus died.

What then was the experience within which Jesus rose? What were the disciples feeling, experiencing when the thunder struck, the lightning flashed and the stone was rolled away? The disciples were experiencing fear and dread, filled with alarm at what might happen to them for their identification with the criminal crucified at Passover. The disciples were full of self-doubt and uncertainty, confused and bewildered, unable to fathom what was happening to them, bamboozled by what had happened to them. Perplexed and confounded, anxious and depressed, without self-confidence, shattered and without hope, that's what the experience of the disciples was.

Into that experience of utter desolation, convinced that they had come to end of the road, into that experience Jesus appeared. Jesus rose in the experience of the disciples. He came and stood among them, 'Peace,' he said. To them who knew no peace, had no hope of peace, whose dream of peace was shattered, to them he appeared and to them in their despair, he said, 'Peace.'

And they were changed. From a rag tag group of betrayers, deniers and forsakers they became the apostles he had commissioned them to be. And thanks to them, thanks to their proclamation and their testimony, their preaching and their witness, you and I are here today to say: I believe. 'Jesus rose from the dead.'

I believe their testimony because it accords with my experience and with ours. We get second chances. Life turns around. New beginnings break open before us. New insights open hitherto uncharted fields of knowledge, science and technology. Someone says, I'm sorry.' I say, 'Let's start again.' On one level it is easy to affirm the resurrection as an historical fact. Jesus rose, we could say, in the same breath as we say that the Great Pyramids are at Gaza and that men have walked on the moon. Objective, out there, hard facts.

Much more costly is the affirmation that the Resurrection of Christ is a dynamic that breaks into our experience here and now. Our collusion with crime and corruption is not exempt from the new life he inaugurates. Our selfishness and greed are not beyond the reach of his victory over all that is mean, and petty, grasping and self-centred. Our unwillingness to face the horrors of our time – poverty and economic injustice, disease and it frightening connections to poverty and economic injustice – this apathetic unwillingness of ours is not beyond the power of his love to change, renew and redirect our lives.

That is what we mean when we say that we believe in the Resurrection. We mean nothing less than that we expect the dynamic power of Christ to break into our experience and burst forth into new life. This sounds like Alleluia Good News to me. That the power of Christ will transform my mind, break open my heart, rearrange my priorities and values, and make me new. This sounds like Alleluia Good News to me.

Jesus rose in the experience of the disciples, Pannenberg wrote. Into their experience of their own faithlessness and betrayal, Jesus rose in forgiveness and unconditional love. O Risen Lord, arise in us. Jesus rose in the experience of the disciples. Into their experience of cowardice and spinelessness, Jesus rose to give them new courage and the strength to persevere. O Risen Lord, arise in us. Into their experience of confusion and bewilderment, Jesus rose to give them a sense of direction and order. O Risen Lord, arise in us. Into their experience of hopeless and despair, Jesus rose to lift their hearts to the true meaning of life and to set them free for joy and peace. O Risen Lord, arise in us.

Because you live, O Christ,
the rainbow of your peace will span creation;
the colours of your love
will draw all humankind to adoration.
The stone has rolled away
and death cannot imprison!
O sing with confidence this Easter Day,
for Jesus Christ has risen! Alleluia!

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