EpiscopalCenter at Duke University

You may have noticed that on Easter Sunday and again today in the place where we’re used to hearing a reading from the Old Testament we instead heard a reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Don’t worry—it wasn’t an oversight. Our lector didn’t begin at the wrong place and we didn’t accidentally skip the Old Testament. We read from Acts on purpose all during Eastertide.

Why? Because this huge thing happened: Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, and then he was resurrected! He was returned to life. Jesus’ resurrection is at the center of our faith and the book of Acts is all about the earliest response to Jesus’ resurrection. So during Easter, we read from Acts—we immerse ourselves in readings about the immediate response to God’s resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So, given our readings today, given that we’re in Eastertide and while the memory of Good Friday is still fresh, I’ve been wondering: what difference does Jesus’ resurrection make? What I have to offer today is a meditation on that question, one I pray you will all be willing to think and talk about with me.

What difference does Jesus’ resurrection make? First, to state the obvious, if Jesus has been resurrected, that means he’s among the living. If Jesus has conquered death, then he’s with us today.

It’s been a couple thousand years, but we’re still learning how to talk about that. For instance, ‘what would Jesus do?’ is a popular question. It’s a way of asking what Jesus, who was obviously a really good person and great example of how to behave, would have done in a particular situation.

It’s a well-intentioned question, but it’s problematic for a bunch of reasons including that it takes as its starting point that Jesus is dead. If we really have to have a slogan to wear on a band on our wrists, ‘what is Jesus doing?’ would at least take into account his resurrection. So that’s the first difference Jesus’ resurrection makes: it means that he is with us.

Second, Jesus’ resurrection means that we’re forgiven. Think about it—the people to whom the risen Christ appears in John’s Gospel are precisely the ones who abandoned him at his darkest hour. Peter, the rock on whom the Church is built, denied Jesus three times over.

But beyond the disciples, even those who tried, convicted, and crucified Jesus are forgiven. In our reading from Acts today, Peter preaches the first sermon ever. And speaking to the devout Jews who gather around him he says, “[t]his man . . . you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law” (meaning that they handed Jesus over to the Romans for the actual crucifixion). “This man,” preaches Peter, “God raised up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”

Peter is preaching Jesus’ resurrection to Jesus’ crucifiers. The very first thing that happens after the Holy Spirit fills the apostles is that they go out and share the gospel news that Christ is risen with those who killed him. Their victim returns to them as their salvation. That’s Jesus working to reconcile his enemies to himself, to God. So, another difference Jesus’ resurrection makes: we are forgiven our sins.

Third, Jesus’ resurrection means that we live in hope. “By God’s great mercy God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” we read in 1 Peter.

At the end of John’s Gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples for the third time, in that lovely scene where they roast fresh-caught fish over the fire and eat breakfast together. And after breakfast Jesus asks Peter, “Simon Peter, do you love me?” three times over, once for each time Peter had denied him. Jesus, crucified after Peter had turned his back on him to save his own skin, waits on Peter’s love. Even more than that, Jesus commissions Peter to feed his sheep, to tend to the Shepherd’s flock.

“The presence of Jesus—still faithful, still calling, inviting his followers to love him—opens out the past in grace,” Rowan Williams writes. “And what Peter may learn is that wherever he may find himself, however he may fall, his life is constantly capable of being opened to God’s creative grace: God’s presence in Jesus will not fail him.” (Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel, p. 30)

From failed disciple to feeder of Jesus’ sheep, Peter becomes not only a recipient but a transmitter of hope. Not a disembodied, groundless hope, either, but a hope that comes from understanding that Jesus knows us to our very core, knows our failures and our lacks, and our sins, and not only loves us anyway, but still wants us to love him. That’s a difference Jesus’ resurrection makes: because Jesus returned to us from the dead we live in hope.

Finally, because of Jesus’ resurrection, we live in joy.

We are, all of us, sinners. We mess up. We mean to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, but we get distracted. And sometimes we’re overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of war, and hunger, and sickness, and poverty.

Jesus appears to the disciples who are cowering behind locked doors. On the other side of those doors, nothing’s changed: the people in power still want to kill anyone who threatens that power, rich people still live right beside poor people, some people are out of work, some are hungry, some are sick, some are mourning. And some, like the disciples, are afraid.

And when Jesus appears, the disciples rejoice. All the problems in the world haven’t suddenly disappeared. The only thing that’s changed is that Jesus is with them. Their joy depends only on Jesus’ presence and Jesus is with them, just as he promised he would be.

Nothing can separate us from God. Jesus’ resurrection means God is always with us and because of God’s presence, we live in joy.

This isn’t a comprehensive answer to the question of what difference does Jesus’ resurrection make. It’s more of a launching pad, a place for us to begin. Easter is a time of joy and thanksgiving for God’s saving work in Jesus Christ and a time to dwell on the response Christ’s resurrection calls forth from us. What difference does Jesus’ resurrection make for you? What difference does it make for all of us? What difference for our lives in Durham and Beijing and Belize and Lebanon and McClean and Arlington and Bahama and on a bike ride from one side of the country to the other? How do we live in the light of Jesus’ resurrection day after day after day wherever we are and whatever we’re doing?

Alleluia! Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed. That’s where we’ll begin. Amen.