“He Made Them Male and Female” - Wrestling with Genesis 1:27

“He made them male and female.” Genesis 1:27

Those words from the opening chapter of the Book of Genesis are among the more familiar words of scripture. They seem, at first glance, beautifully simple - clear, ordered, and reassuring. Humanity, we are told, is created in two forms: male and female. A binary, distinct and complete.

And yet, as with so much in scripture, what appears simple on the surface begins to open into something far more complex when we look more closely at life, at science, the lived experience of human beings and indeed the Bible and theology as well.

I want to say at the outset that I approach this subject from a particular perspective, one that I don’t think is always heard in church. But it is not the only perspective. You do not need to agree with me. My hope is simply to open a space for deeper thought and reflection. 

My own perspective on matters of gender and sexuality was once very clear-cut. Right up to my late twenties, I held firm, definite and fairly conservative views. But then life did what life often does, it introduced me to real people… people of sincerity, integrity, and kindness… people whose lives bore the marks not of confusion or rebellion, but of a genuine and sincere desire to love and to live well, people whose desire and intent was to be of service to others often at cost to themselves. In other words they held many of the same values that I held as a Christian and follower of Christ. 

In meeting them, something in me softened. My certainty gave way to curiosity, y judgments gave way to listening and my strongly held opinions began to shift and change. 

Even before those real-life encounters, questions had already begun to arise for me - information and perspectives that didn’t fit neatly into my earlier understanding.

The first was a story I read in a South African Sunday paper. It told of a former Catholic priest.

This person had been born intersex. An intersexed person has a mixture of male and female biological markers not always immediately physically obvious. But in this instance, at birth, there was no clear physical indication that the child was either male or female, having a mixture of male and female reproductive characteristics. Faced with this uncertainty, the parents made a decision: they chose to raise the child as a boy.

For a time, that seemed to settle things. The child grew up, followed a vocation, and was eventually ordained as a Catholic priest, even teaching theology in a Catholic Seminary. The Church did not know that this person was intersex, neither clearly male nor clearly female.

But over time, something deeper began to emerge. Despite being raised as male, there was an inner awareness that this identity did not fully fit. More and more, the one everyone knew outwardly as “he” began to recognise inwardly that she experienced herself as “she,” (and perhaps this awareness was there all along.)

Nurture, family expectations, and religious expectations and formation could not override that inner sense of identity. And so at great personal cost, she eventually embraced her identity as a woman. Nothing physically had changed, but inwardly, everything had become clear.

The response from the Catholic Church was also clear: the priesthood was male-only, and so her ordination and licence were revoked.

That story planted questions for me. If a person can be born without clear biological markers of male or female, then perhaps the idea of a completely clear-cut binary is not as absolute as I had once assumed.

Science tells us that, at a purely biological level, around 1–2% of people are born with some form of intersex variation. Relatively speaking that is quite a high percentage. 1-2 out of every hundred people living in Dromore and Banbridge would fall into this category.  These are differences in chromosomes, hormones, or anatomy that do not fit typical definitions of male or female. Only a small proportion of these cases are obvious at birth; for many, the differences are less visible.

For example, a person may appear biologically female but have a male Y chromosome, or a person may appear male but have variations in chromosomes or hormone responses.

What this means, even for a small or medium size town like Dromore and Banbridge, is worth considering. In a school of around 1,000 pupils, statistically speaking, there could be around 15–20 children who, in some way, do not fit neatly into simple biological categories of male or female – and with those physical and biological markers one can easily imagine that such children, teenagers and adults might not feel they fit neatly into the socially acceptable binary categories of male and female.

A few years ago, the BBC aired a documentary asking: Do you have a male or female brain?

The premise, based on scientific research into average differences between male and female brains, is that there are some physical and functional differences. For example, some regions of the brain linked to spatial awareness and coordination on average tend to be more developed in males, while some regions linked to language, emotional processing, and social connection  tend to be more developed in female brains.

However, these are general patterns - not fixed rules.  What is increasingly recognised is that many people do not fit neatly into these categories. Some men show patterns more typical of female brains, and some women show patterns more typical of male brains.

This suggests that, biologically speaking, it is possible for a person to have a male body and, at the same time, patterns of brain development more typically associated with females—or vice versa.

This does not erase the categories of male and female, but it does suggest that they are not always as sharply defined as we might assume. (In other words things are sometimes fuzzier than we fist think)

These questions were deepened for me through reading Carl Jung one of the giants of early 20th century exploration into psychology and the inner workings of the unconscious. Through his work exploring the inner life, Jung came to the conclusion that within every person there exists both a masculine and a feminine aspect, just as all people have both male and female hormones.  He called these the animus and the anima.

For Jung, psychological growth involved learning to integrate these aspects in a greater balance:
For example, the average more typical man, with his more natural tendency towards assertiveness, learning tenderness and nurture, while the average more typical woman, with her more natural tendency towards receptivity, learning assertiveness and strength

In this way, Carl Jung came to see that masculinity and femininity are not strictly separate categories, but exist within each person—something more like a balance than a rigid divide.

I saw something of this in my own home growing up. My father carried a wonderful gentleness and a natural gift for care and nurture, while my mother had a strength and practical confidence—never afraid to pick up the tools and fix what needed fixing, whether it was the car or the washing machine.

And in their own ways, each of them reflected something rich and whole about what it means to be human.

Returning to the story of the former Catholic priest, what stands out is that upbringing and nurture alone were not able to override this person’s inner sense of identity.  She was raised as male, but it did not change her deeper inner sense of being female.

Many people who identify as gay, lesbian, or transgender describe something similar. From their earliest memories, they sensed that they were different - not as a choice, but as something they always felt deeply about themselves.

Their journeys are often difficult, involving confusion, struggle, being bullied and sometimes facing rejection by their closest family members. It raises a simple question: why would someone choose such a difficult path - unless, perhaps, it was never really a choice in the first place?

If we reflect on our own lives, most of us would say that our own sense of gender and attraction was not something we consciously chose, it was just a given.  What if we extended that same understanding to others? What if if for them it is also just a given? 

Another factor that challenged my earlier certainty is the understanding that development in the womb is a complex process. Biological development along male or female lines does not happen all at once. It unfolds over time and involves a series of processes influenced by genetic signals and the release of different hormones at different stages of pregnancy.

In most cases, these processes follow typical patterns. But they are not always identical in every pregnancy, and growing scientific evidence suggests that variations in these processes, including the release of certain hormones at certain times during pregnancy may play a role in shaping a person’s later sense of sexual orientation and gender identity.

I remember speaking with a mother in a church I served in Johannesburg.  She was struggling deeply with what she saw as her son’s “choice” to be gay. She blamed herself and felt pressure from others who suggested she must have done something wrong.

But when she began to understand that development during pregnancy is complex - and not simply a matter of upbringing - something shifted.  She reflected on her pregnancy with her son and remembered that it had not been straightforward. Her hormones had been all over the place, not following typical patterns.  For the first time, she began to consider that perhaps her son had not chosen this at all.  It became a turning point for her.

Where there had been shame and distance, there came acceptance and love. She no longer felt it was her role to try to change him, but to love him and support him in becoming the best version of who he already was.

So how do we interpret Genesis?

God is One. This is the affirmation of all monotheistic faiths. And yet Genesis tells us that both male and female are made in the image of God suggesting that masculinity and feminity are qualities that emerge from a single Divine source. 

And if that is so, that the masculine and the feminine emerge from a single Divine Source and male and female both reflect the Divine, then Carl Jung’s insight - that something of both exists within each of us - is not so far removed from a theological perspective. After all, even biologically speaking each of us have both male and female hormones in varying degrees. 

The question then becomes: How shall we respond? How do we live in a world where most people fit into clear categories, but some do not?  How do we respond to the statistical fact that quite possibly 10-20 children who attend a local primary school are biologically intersexed… at a physical level not fitting into the neat binary categories of male and female. 

Do we make those who do not fit feel like outsiders?
Do we force them to fit into our ideas of how we think they should be – even when key biological markers shows that they don’t?
Or do we make space for them to be themselves? Just as we have been given space to be ourselves?
And what if this is done not in a reckless way, but with deep care. 

Is there guidance in scripture you may ask? Hopefully by now we have begun to see that the Bible is more complex than some kind of an encyclopedic rule or law book… It is clearly not that. 

For Christians, the example of Jesus Christ is ultimately central and against whom the rest of scripture is evaluated. And when we look carefully at his life, a pattern begins to emerge - again and again, he moves towards those who are marginalised and excluded. Those who do not fit. Those who are pushed to the edges.

While others draw lines and build boundaries, Jesus crosses them.  While others exclude, Jesus includes. While others judge by outward appearance, Jesus looks deeper - seeing the person, the heart, and the humanity within.

And this pattern continues in the life of the early Church.  In the Acts of the Apostles, we find the story of the eunuch baptised by Philip. Under Jewish law, eunuchs were excluded - unable to participate fully in the religious community. But Philip, moved by the Spirit (of Jesus), does something remarkable: he does not hesitate, he does not question, he does not exclude. He baptises him, welcoming him fully into the people of God.  It is a powerful moment of inclusion.

And it becomes even more meaningful when we understand that in the ancient world, the word “eunuch” did not always refer only to men who had been physically castrated. While that was its most common meaning, it could also be used more broadly for those who did not fit typical masculine roles in society - those who, for various reasons, stood outside the usual expectations of marriage, sexuality, and family life. 

So here, in this encounter, we may be seeing not just the inclusion of one individual, but a sign that the grace of God reaches even those who do not fit neatly into society’s categories.

And perhaps that invites us to ask again:  If that is how the Spirit of Jesus was moving then… how might the Spirit of Jesus be calling us to respond today?

Those questions, while they should be central for us as Christians, don’t however simply remove all complexity.  In our modern world, there are real and difficult questions - questions around areas such as sport, privacy, and safety. These require careful thought and discernment. There are also cases where situations can be misused and abused.

But the existence of such cases should not lead us to reject or ostracise those whose experiences are genuine - many of whom are themselves vulnerable.

Finally I would like to get to what for me has become the heart of the matter

In 1 Samuel 16:7 we are told that God “does not look at the outward, external appearance, but at the heart”.

As I wrestled with these questions over the years, I came to see that the deeper issue is not about external categories, but about the condition of the heart. This was clearly Jesus position on parallel issues… what is the state of the heart?
 
Not, who is someone attracted but, what kind of life do they - and we - live?

Do they display what Paul in Galatians refers to as the fruit of the spirit:  showing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  Because for Paul these were a kind of litmus test: he asserts in effect that wherever these are present, the life of God is present. And wherever the life of God is present, we are on holy ground.

A closing thought, getting back to the verse in Genesis that we started with:  “He made them male and female.”  Yes.  But perhaps those words are not meant to close down the conversation, but to open it. To invite us into wonder at the diversity of creation.

It is clear that God and the process of evolution favours diversity over a lack of diversity.   The process of evolution, guided I believe by the higher intelligence of the Divine Mind has not produced only one kind of tree or flower, but multiple kinds of trees, flowers, animals, birds and insects… and even human beings of diverse languages and colours. These are clearly not mistakes… this is the trajectory of evolution and therefore must in some way reflect the divine will and intention.  What if those who do not fit into our neat binary categories of male and female are not in fact aberrations but part of the diversity of the Divine will.  This would be a very boring world if we were all exactly the same.  There is something rich and beautiful in the diversity of creation… 

And perhaps what seems to be the Divine Love for diversity is call beyond fear into deeper understanding.  To remind us that human beings and human diversity are not problems to be solved but mysteries to be honoured.  And to lead us, above all, into a greater and a deeper love. Because according to Paul, if we miss love, we have missed everything. If I have no love says Paul I am nothing,  no better than a clanging cymbal. 

Whatever our views are on these things, (and ultimately we are talking now about ideas, but about people) how might we approach them with deep, sincere and Christ-like love? 

As always, just some food for thought… Amen.

We had hoped... Luke 24:13-35

This the third Sunday of the season of Easter.

And by this point, it is very easy for us to settle into the brightness of resurrection when we tend to  speak of hope, and joy and the celebration of new life.

But sometimes, in our eagerness to arrive at Easter, we move too quickly past the road that leads there. Because there is no Easter Sunday… without the journey that comes before it.

A journey that begins for many Christians on Ash Wednesday, with the words: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” a sobering reminder of our physical mortality.  It is a journey through the wilderness of Lent…Through the intensity of Holy Week… And into the deep, unsettling darkness of Good Friday.

And so if we want to truly understand our Gospel passage today, the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, then we have to carry that whole journey with us.

Because the Emmaus story is not just a happy ending, it is a story about what happens after everything has fallen apart. It is a story that takes place in the wake of the shock, grief and loss of Good Friday. 

One of the key lessons of Good Friday is the truth of impermanence.  The crucifixion and death of Jesus is a stark and shocking reminder of the impermanence of life in this world.  Everything and everyone you love is of the nature to change. 

If you think about your life, there are certain moments that define it. Moments of joy, and celebration, like births and weddings and achievments. But also moments of sorrow, like loss and death.  These are the moments that shape us – and for each of us those moments might be different. 

But there is something they all have in common. They do not last. A wedding day may be a beautiful and memorable experience, but it passes. The birth of a child may change a persons life forever, but children grow up. Bodies change. Circumstances shift. Everything in this life is moving… changing… passing. Nothing in this world is permanent. 

And yet, if we are honest, this is something we struggle to accept. Because deep down, we want things to last. We want loved ones to remain as they are. We want life to stay familiar. We want meaning to feel secure. And when things change… we suffer, not simply because something has ended, but because we had believed or we had hoped it would not. 

And perhaps the most difficult place to see this is not in the world around us, but in fact in ourselves. Because we tend to think of ourselves as fixed, as continuous, as the same person we have always been.  But are we?

Perhaps take a moment and reflect. Think of yourself, your name, your identity, who you believe yourself to be. And then gently ask: has that been permanent?

The child you once were, is that still who you are? The teenager?  The young adult? At each stage of life, something has fallen away… and something new has emerged. When a little girl turns ten, the six year old child is no longer there… she has changed, she has grown.  And the little 10 year old boy is no longer the same boy when he turns 13 or 14. 

All through life we find ourselves having to shed an old identity and take on a new one: 
A new identity when you left school. Another when you entered work. Another perhaps when you married. Another when you became a parent. Another when your children left home or you became a grandparent.  And these are just a few examples of our ever changing identities… our ever changing sense of self. 

Each time, something was born…  and something else had to die. This is the universal truth of Good Friday. 

And even in our deepest experiences of loss, this truth is quietly present. When someone we love dies, of course we grieve them. But if we are very honest, something else is also happening. An identity within us is passing away. “I was a son…”, “I was a wife…” “I was a friend in this particular way…” And when that person is gone, that version of ourselves is gone too.

And that is part of what we are mourning. The loss of something real… but also the loss of an identity that, though meaningful… was never permanent.

But this is not something to make us cold or detached. It is something to make us more awake, to help us see life more truthfully, to hold things more gently, to love more deeply - because we know how precious and fleeting everything is.

A friend of mine says that might be one of the reasons we call it is Good Friday, because it teaches us to live with the truth of impermanence and to treasure and value each unrepeatable moment. 

Now bring that awareness with you… to the road to Emmaus.  Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem. Away from the place where everything they had hoped for seemed to collapse in a matter of hours. They had found something in Jesus – a sense of hope, purpose, and direction. 
And somewhere within themselves, they had hoped and believed: “this will last.”

But then comes the cross and the death of Jesus, and everything changes. And so they say to the stranger they meet on the road: “We had hoped…”

Hope, for them, is over. Their expectation has died. And as they walk, so the story tells us, the risen Christ comes alongside them.  But they do not recognise him, which is astonishing. Here is the very presence of life… and they cannot see it.

Why are they prevented from seeing? Because they are still living in Good Friday. Because they are still holding onto what has passed away. They are still clinging to the way things were. They are still looking for Christ in a form that no longer exists. And so they miss the presence of Christ… as it is now.

And here is where the story opens into something profound, because the Gospel invites us to see that while everything in life is changing, there is something that does not change.

On Good Friday, Jesus - the human form – dies. But the Christ, the Eternal Divine Presence that was his true nature… does not die. The light does not go out. The deeper reality remains.

The Gospel of John says: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Even when darkness covers the land, the light remains. Good Friday reminds us: in the midst of death, there is a deathless reality. In the midst of change, there is the unchanging. And this leads us to Easter.

As a friend of min said recently: Resurrection is not something that suddenly happens after three days. It is a truth that is realised by the disciples after three days. The Eternal Light of Christ never died and therefore it does not need to rise. It always is. Easter is the awakening to that truth. And when you realise within yourself that which cannot die, you have touched resurrection.

And this is where we must go even further. Because the Christ is not only something or someone that walks beside us.  The Christ is the deepest truth of who we are. The light that no darkness can overcome… is not outside of you. It is within you. It is your own deepest nature.

This is why resurrection is not simply about something happening to Jesus. It is about a truth being revealed: that beneath all that changes… beneath all that is born and dies… there is something deathless and immortal in you that does not come and go, something that was never born… and can never die.

And so, as they walk, Jesus begins to reinterpret their story. He helps them see that what they thought was the end… was not the end, that what had fallen away was not the deepest reality just the outward impermanent form.

And slowly, something begins to shift. Not in the world around them, but in how they see. And this new way of seeing is made known at the end of the story… but on the road they have already had an intuition of it – their hearts have been burning within them. 

At the end of the journey, when at the table, he takes bread… blesses it… breaks it… and gives it to them...their eyes are opened, and they recognise him. And then - he vanishes.

Because once the recognition has happened, the form is no longer necessary. They are no longer clinging to an outer appearance. They have glimpsed something deeper. And this is resurrection.
Not the return of what was… but the awakening to what always is.

So perhaps the question for us, today, is this: Where are we still saying, “We had hoped…”?
Where are we clinging to the impermanent, to something that has already changed? Where are we holding onto an identity… a role… a version of life… that is passing away?

Because the invitation of Easter is not to deny change. It is not to pretend that loss is not real. It is to see more deeply. To recognise that in the midst of all that comes and goes, there is something that remains, an Eternal Light at the heart of all things that can never be put out.

There is a presence that walks with us…but even more than that, a light that lives within us.  A life that is not destroyed by change. A truth of who we are that cannot be lost even when the outward form of our bodies is shed and fades away.

And perhaps, like those disciples, as we begin to see more clearly…glimpsing the Eternal Light  behind the impermanent forms of this world, we too may discover, that even in the moments when everything seemed to fall apart… when everything around us changes… there is something hidden that does not change.  When everything else fades… there is a light that does not dim. And that eternal light, is the life of Christ within you, your true eternal nature. 

Amen.

Sent in Peace - “As the Father Sent Me, So I Send You” - A Reflection on John 20:19–31

There is something very human about the scene in our lectionary passage today from John’s Gospel.

The disciples are gathered behind locked doors. They are afraid and disoriented. Unsure of what comes next.

This is not a triumphant church. This is not a community full of certainty and bold faith. This is a fragile, anxious, uncertain gathering of people who have lost their centre. And it is precisely here we are told, not later, not once they have sorted themselves out - that the risen Christ comes and stands among them and says:  “Peace be with you.”

John places this moment in Jerusalem, behind locked doors, on the evening of Easter Day itself. 
Unlike Gospel of Matthew where there is no Jerusalem encounter with the disciples, and where the commissioning happens later, on a mountain in Galilee, here in Gospel of John the sending happens right in the midst of fear on Easter night.

There is no delay between the events of Good Friday and the commissioning on Easter Sunday evening. There is no spiritual preparation course, and no requirement of perfect belief.  Just fear… and presence… and peace… and sending.

And perhaps that is the first thing John wants us to see: The mission of the church to live in the way of Jesus does not begin when we are ready. It begins when we are met by the Divine Presence and a word of peace is spoken into the midst of our fear. 

John tells us the disciples were afraid of “the Jews.” But many scholars remind us that this is better understood as “the Judaeans” - those associated with the religious and political centre in Jerusalem.
This is not a blanket statement about a people. It is a symbolic contrast.

The disciples, who are themselves Jewish, are however from the margins, from Galilee, the edges.
The “Judaeans” by contrast represent the centre of power, control, and religious authority.  And so the tension here is not ethnic, it is spiritual and social: The way of Jesus emerges from the margins… and often stands in quiet resistance to systems of power that cannot recognise it.

And as the narrative unfolds, we find that three times Jesus says: “Peace be with you.”
Before any sending, before any commissioning, before any instruction: Peace.

This is peace, not as a vague feeling, but as a grounding presence. Because the work to which they are called cannot be sustained by anxiety, fear, or striving. It must flow from peace.

And then comes the commission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

This is John’s version of the Great Commission and echoes the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.  But notice: Jesus does not say, “Go and build a religion about me.”
He says, in effect:  “Live the same life I have lived. Embody the same way of love. Become what I have been.”

This is a call to growth, a call to human maturity. In John’s Gospel Jesus represents not just the Divine Presence, he also represents the fullness of what it means to be a mature human being.  The commission to the disciples is to become what Jesus is in the world: As the Father sent me, so I am sending you… How was Jesus sent by the Father?  According to the opening chapter of John’s Gospel, he was sent as a light in the darkness, he was sent as the bringer of life in all it’s fullness, sent to enable others to become children of the Divine, sent as one who was full of Grace and Truth. And this is now the task of the disciples… and us. As the Father has sent me to I am sending you. 

Then comes one of the most profound moments in all the Gospels: “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” This is John’s Pentecost moment. Not 40 days later, as in Gospel of Luke and Acts, but here, and now in this room on Easter Sunday evening.

And the imagery and symbolism is unmistakable.  It takes us all the way back to Book of Genesis, 
where the first Human Beings come to life when the Divine breath is breathed into them. This is not just empowerment. This is new creation… The fearful disciples are being re-created, re-animated, re-born into a new way of being – breathed into with the peace of Christ… breathed into to live in the spirit of Christ.

But notice again: Nothing external has changed. The world is still dangerous. The powers that crucified Jesus are still in place. But something within them has changed.  The Divine breath of life and peace has entered their fear… and transformed it into a vocation.

And then comes one of the most puzzling and often most troubling of verses. Jesus says to them: 
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” What exactly does this verse mean?  In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, this has been understood as priestly authority to grant or withhold absolution. 

But what might it mean here, in John’s symbolic and spiritual language? Perhaps this: To live in the Spirit of Christ is to become a bearer of reconciliation.  When we forgive - truly forgive - we release others. We loosen the chains of guilt, shame, and estrangement. But when we refuse to forgive - when we hold onto resentment, bitterness, judgment - we participate in the retaining of those chains.

In other words: The Risen Christ is reminding us that we have enormous power and responsibility.  This is part of what it means to grow to full human maturity. We the power to create worlds of freedom… or worlds of imprisonment.  Not through divine decree, but through the way we live, relate, and love. The question is how will we use that power? How did Christ use that power?

And then in the narrative we meet Thomas.  Honest, courageous Thomas. “I will not believe” he says “unless I see… unless I touch…”

And a week later, we read that Jesus comes again. And this time, Thomas present and  is invited:
“Put your finger here… See my hands… Reach out your hand and put it into my side…”
Now, what do we make of this? Are we meant to imagine a literal physical verification? 
Or is John inviting us into something deeper?

Throughout this Gospel, “seeing” is never just about physical sight. It is about perception., recognition and awakening. Perhaps what Thomas represents is this: We do not come to faith by avoiding the wounds. We come to faith by entering them.  To “touch the wounds of Christ” is to participate in his way of being, to stand with those who suffer, to love in the face of rejection, to give oneself for others.

And it is there, not in some kind of abstract belief, but in lived participation that we come to see and understand the way of Jesus. And so Thomas responds: “My Lord and my God.” Faith arises from ‘touching the wounds of Christ’, from participating in the way of Christ, sharing in his sufferings, touching, as it were, his wounds.

And what does that exclamation of Thomas mean; My Lord and my God? Earlier on in John’s Gospel, Jesus quotes from the Psalms and says: Don’t your own scriptures say: You are gods? It is the same word Theos in both instances. When Thomas says ‘My Lord and My God’, he is not just recognizing the Divine in Jesus… he is seeing in Jesus a reflection of his own true nature… he too was made to be Divine… to be a barer of the Divine Nature. 

And so the passage ends with a word for us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is not a statement about blind belief.  It is an invitation.

We may not see Jesus with our physical eyes, like the early disciples who knew the historical Jesus.
We may not have dramatic encounters. But we are invited into the same path: To receive the breath.
To live the peace. To embody the love. To touch the wounds. To participate in the mission. And when we do that we too will see… not with our eyes, but with an inner knowing and an inner understanding: ‘Ah, now I see what Jesus was all about’!

And so we return to that central line:  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

This is not just a commission, it is a calling into identity.  To be sent as Jesus was sent, is to live as an expression of divine grace and truth in the world, bringing life, shining light into the darkness.

It is to go where there is fear - and bring peace. To go where there is division and embody reconciliation. To go where there is suffering and dare to love.  And perhaps most importantly, to discover that it is in the going…in the living… in the sharing of that life… that our doubts begin to soften, and our inner vision begins to clear…That we come, in our own way, to recognise: The risen Christ is not only someone we are invited to believe in… but a life we are invited to live. Amen. 

​ What is the point of the resurrection?  Matthew 28:1–10 

What is the point of the resurrection?

That may sound like a strange question to ask on Easter morning. Surely the point is obvious?

And yet… when we listen carefully to the different voices of the New Testament, it becomes less straightforward.

Paul the Apostle, our earliest Christian writer, speaks of resurrection as transformation, a metapmorphsis into “a spiritual body”, not simply flesh and blood brought back to life. And his encounter with the Risen Christ was not with a resuscitated physical body but with a voice and a light on the road to Damascus.   Gospel of Mark, the earliest Gospel, written after Paul’s writings, ends with an empty tomb and a promise, but no appearance of the risen Jesus at all.  Gospel of Matthew written about 20 years later gives us two brief encounters, mysterious, powerful, but not over-explained. And the later Gospels of Luke and John become more physical, more tangible in their descriptions of the Resurrection of Jesus.

And then in Matthew’s telling of the Resurrection story there is a strange detail, one no one else includes: The earthquakes. At the moment Jesus dies, the earth shakes, rocks split, tombs open. And again, on Easter morning, the earth shakes once more. Why?

If this were simply about reporting events, surely all the Gospels would mention something so dramatic. But Matthew alone tells it this way. Which suggests he is not only describing something that happened… He is telling us what it means.

For Matthew, the death and resurrection of Jesus are not small, contained religious moments. They are earth-shattering. They shake the very foundations of reality. The world, as we have known it - our assumptions, our certainties, our systems - is being shaken loose. It is as though something has come into the world that does not fit… and cannot be contained.

And that brings us back to the question: What is the point of resurrection?

Perhaps it is, first of all, this:  Resurrection is the announcement that death is not the end. That life is stronger than death. That what we see is not all there is. For people who live with the quiet fear that everything ends in loss… everything fades into nothing… Resurrection speaks a word of deep freedom:  You do not need to live in fear. Life is larger than you imagined. The story is bigger than death.  And perhaps that is why in Matthew’s telling of the story the first words of the Risen Christ to the women are the words: “Do not be afraid.”

But that is only part of it.

Because if resurrection were only about life after death, it could remain something distant—something for the future. Matthew will not let it stay there because the one who is raised is this Jesus. The one who taught love of enemies. The one who refused violence. The one who ate with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners. The one whose radical love challenged both religious and political power. The one who embodied a way of being human that seemed, to many, naïve… impractical… even dangerous.

And what did the world do with that way of being? It rejected it. It silenced it. It crucified it.

Why?

Because the way of Jesus exposes something. It exposes how much of our world is built, not on love, but on fear. Not on truth, but on control. Not on trust, but on the anxious grasping of the ego.

And so here is the second meaning of resurrection:

It is God’s yes, the Divine yes, to the way of Jesus.

Where the world says, “This way cannot work,” Resurrection says, “This is the way of life.” 
Where power says, “Strength comes through domination,” Resurrection says, “True power is revealed in self-giving love.”  Where fear says, “Protect yourself at all costs,” Resurrection says, “Lose your life, and you will find it.”

And now, perhaps, we begin to understand the the deeper significance of the earthquakes in the story.

If Jesus truly lived in tune with the deepest reality, if his way is aligned with the very grain of the universe, then everything that stands against that way is, in some sense, unstable, out of alignment, built on shaky ground. And when that deeper truth is revealed - fully revealed in the crucifixion and resurrection - then the ground begins to move, the rocks split, the tombs open, the old world begins to crack. Because the resurrection is not just about what happens after death, it is about what happens when truth meets illusion, when love meets fear. When the way of Christ meets the ego-driven structures of the world, something has to give.

And Matthew tells us that it is the world, as we have known it, that begins to tremble. This is why the resurrection is not just comforting, it is also deeply unsettling. Because if it is true, if the way of Jesus is not just a beautiful ideal, but touches the deepest truth of reality, then it calls everything into question:  The way we live. The way we relate. The way we build our lives around control, status, security. All of it stands on ground that is not as solid as we thought.

And yet, this is not a message of destruction. It is a message of liberation. Because what is being shaken is not what is real - it is what is false. It is what cannot ultimately endure, so that something deeper… truer… more alive… can emerge.

And this is where Matthew leads us. The women meet the risen Christ. And what are the first words they hear? “Do not be afraid.” And then: “Go and tell…”

And at the end of the Gospel just a few verses later:  “Go and make disciples…”

This is the point of resurrection in Matthew’s Gospel. Not simply that Jesus is alive, but that a new way of being human has been revealed as true. That love is stronger than fear, that life is stronger than death. And that we are now invited, not just to believe it, but to live it, to become disciples of this risen life. And perhaps that is why Matthew describes the women falling down in worship and holding onto his feet.

What does worship actually mean?  The old English comes from two root words:  Worth and Ship  / Shape… and means to give worth or value… As they fall in worship and hold onto Jesus feet, they are affirming that in Jesus they have seen their highest value… holding onto his feet.

To worship Jesus it to declare that in Jesus we see our highest worth, to see in Jesus what is most valuable in life, To worship is to dedicate oneself to the way and the values of Jesus. It is not so much to put Jesus on a pedestal and constantly say how much better than us Jesus is. It is to commit ourselves to becoming like Jesus… discovering our own inner Christ-like potential and bringing it forth into the world, becoming who and what Jesus is. It is to put his teachings into practice. 

And perhaps that takes us to the symbolism of woman grasping Jesus feet? Firstly, it is a sign of deep respect. In the east, particularly in India to greet a great spiritual teacher one bends down and touches their feet.  It is a sign of humility, but also more than that, it is a symbolic way of expressing a desire to follow in the footsteps of the teacher, Feet are the means by which we walk through life, they represent the path we walk, to grasp Jesus feet is symbolically to affirm the way of Jesus. 

Resurrection message of Matthew is not just a message of admiring Jesus, it is in fact a call to follow Jesus. What t is the meaning of the Resurrection for Matthew?  It is a call to walk in the way of Jesus, to make the way of Jesus our own, it is to make his values and teachings our own, so that the Way of Jesus lives on in us -  love of enemies, being true to our word, loving our neighbours as ourselves, reaching out in compassion to the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, those in prison. 

And when that happens the earth is once again shaken… 

And so perhaps the question for us this Easter is this:
Where in our lives is the ground beginning to shake?
Where are the old certainties cracking?
Where is the way of Jesus quietly, persistently, unsettling the way we have learned to live?

Because that shaking… is not the end. It is the beginning. The beginning of resurrection.

Amen.