The Greatest Paradigm Shift

Just over three-hundred years ago, people saw the world through Isaac Newton’s eyes. Newton described a world that was regular, clockwork, where things were entirely predictable. Gravity pulls things to the ground, objects move in straight lines, time is the same for everyone, everywhere. It was a clockwork universe.

But in the beginning of the twentieth century, this view of reality was fundamentally changed by a man called Albert Einstein who developed what was to become his world-famous theory of relativity. Einstein shocked the world by demonstrating that not everything obeyed Newton’s laws. When things are moving extremely fast, for example, or when they are affected by extreme gravity. Huge things like the sun warp space, and light can bend around stars in such circumstances. Time itself can stretch or shrink depending on how fast you are moving. If a rocket zooms through space at near light speed, time moves slower than for someone standing still on Earth. In short, this theory demonstrated that our view of time, space and motion all depend on where we are and how fast we are moving. Everything is relative. Nothing is fixed.

Einstein’s theory of relativity changed everything. Previously the world had been seen as a stage set on which nothing moved. Now, it was as though the stage was constantly shifting, and the sets were being changed and the props were being moved around. The map of reality was being redrawn. And it was no surprise at all to find out that many people struggled to accept it.

When asked to explain the theory of relativity, Einstein said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”

I speak of this because I am trying to demonstrate something of the strangeness and the wonder of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His rising from death was the moment when absolutely everything changed. The Jewish people had expected that the Messiah would be a warrior-king who would lead the sons of Israel to victory. Even when Jesus explained to his disciples time and time again that he would rise from the dead, they could not understand what he was saying. Their picture of the world simply couldn’t fit that fact in.

What was needed was an entire paradigm shift, a reordering of their reality. They would need to let go of the old certainties and embrace an entirely new vision of the world. Their thinking was far too small. God’s plan, you see, was not simply to overthrow the Romans and liberate the Jews. His plan was to redeem the entire universe through the conquest of sin and death.

The Preaching of the Resurrection

In the Book of Acts, whenever the early Christians get a chance to preach their message to anyone, they always include as a central fact the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Our reading today is an example of this and a very good summary of the early Christian message. What does the Apostle Peter say to his listeners?

- He begins by telling them that God wants to reach everybody in every nation.

- He speaks of Jesus preaching good news of peace, being baptised and anointed with the Holy Spirit, doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.

- He tells of Jesus’ crucifixion, that he was put to death by being hung on a tree.

- ‘…but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.’

- He has been appointed by God to judge the living and the dead, the prophets bear witness to him and everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.

Doubtless, there is lots to unpack there but let’s consider this claim that Jesus was raised from the dead. Now Peter is not saying that Jesus’ corpse was reanimated and that he was just like a normal man walking around again. Something far more incredible than that had happened. Jesus had been raised by God to a new kind of life, a life animated by the power of God himself, a life from another dimension, an indestructible life that would never be snuffed out.

Pagan Melancholy

It's certainly true that the pagan world had conjured up myths about the conquest of death and had even suggested that the soul of a person may survive death and migrate to a heaven-like realm. But, in the end, the world into which Christianity was born was tinged by melancholy and despair. The great spiritual writer Robert Crouse described the picture of that world like this:

As we reflect upon these things, do we not see a similar mindset in our world today? There are differences, of course, but we too make our idols and soothe ourselves on notions of goodness and morality, whilst we medicate ourselves with food, drink and modern technology, all the while knowing, somewhere deep inside, that none of these things can answer the deepest questions and provide rescue from the ultimate enemy, which is death itself, and the annihilation of all our hope and life.

In one of the greatest films ever made, Clint Eastwood’s Western ‘Unforgiven’, the aged gunslinger William Munny reflects upon a recent assassination he and his younger associate the Schofield Kid have just undertaken: “It’s a hell of thing killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.” This is what death does to all of us. This is our caste of mind. This is our picture of the world. Unless there is something else, something more.

The Implications of the Resurrection

And the resurrection of Christ says exactly that. In Christ’s death and burial, we see our own. We see our dying moment. We see our funerals. We see our gravestones. But, in his resurrection, we see something else also: a future hope beyond the final enemy, beyond that taking away of everything we have.

Just like the theory of relativity, the resurrection completely changes our view of the world. For a start, we realise that Jesus is not dead but he is, in fact, alive. On Easter morning, we shout with joy, not, “He rose!” but “He is risen!” Present tense. Because it is still true today. Jesus is alive. He reigns in Heaven with God the Father. He is present to his Church through his Spirit and in the Holy Eucharist. He dwells with us in our love for and joy in one another.

Secondly, the resurrection teaches us that we can trust Jesus. When he told people that he was Israel’s Messiah and that he would rise from the dead, that prediction proved correct.When Jesus made this prediction – the most outrageous, outlandish prediction you can possibly imagine, “I am going to be killed and rise from the dead after three days” – he got it right.

If he was right about this, surely, he is right about everything else also. Surely, we can trust him with our very selves, with our very lives.

And the final thing to say about this is that the resurrection of Jesus gives us hope. Hope that death is not the final word in God’s universe. In perhaps the greatest passage on the resurrection in all of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus’ future is bound up with our own, and that, as Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit, so those who put their trust in him to save them from death will be raised up and given everlasting life and joy.

And this, friends, is why we have as our Old Testament reading this morning, Isaiah 65, a vision of a universe completely restored, indeed a vision of this universe interpenetrated by the heavenly realm itself, a new heavens and a new earth, a heavenly Jerusalem, a vision of the life and the world that we have always longed for but perhaps never believed might just be true:

The fact is that Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of this new world, the beginning of the new creation, the pivotal moment at which it was proved beyond doubt that there is a power in the world stronger even than the power of death. What is that power? That power is the love of God.

And, friends, this is the most wonderful thing: even today, even now, especially now upon this Easter morning when we celebrate this joyful happening, we can taste something of that power, that life, that love which would not abandon the soul of Christ to the grave but raised him victoriously in his triumph, never to die again. We taste this power in the joy of our Easter celebration.

Christian, do you suffer? Do you labour? Are you losing the will to go on? Are you in pain? Are you wondering if there is any hope at all in this tired and weary world? Take heart. The tomb is empty. He is not there. He is risen. See the place where they laid him. As the great hymn says: Death is conquered! Man is free! Christ hath won the victory! Alleluia!