Alleluia! Christ is risen!
There is a word that I have noticed cropping up a lot. Not just in Church, although certainly there,
but also secular contexts. I wonder if you noticed it too. The word is ‘hope’. It seems to be
functioning as a life-line, something to cling on to in an uncertain world.

Looking back the first time it caught my attention was the large neon installation at the Cathedral
during Covid– it simply spelled out the four letters H, O, P, E in bright colours. A word for a very
uncertain time. The uncertainty of the world situation can be brought vividly to mind by certain
other words, words that express anxiety: Ukraine, Gaza, even America. These words can trigger the
anxiety that directly affect us. War, changing alliances, old assumptions challenged – all this has
come right to our national doorstep.

Hope is one the three theological virtues: faith, hope and love. Paul gives us this triad at the end his
great chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13. ‘Faith, hope and love, these three abide, but the greatest
of these is love’ (1 Corinthians 13.13). So hope, like faith and love is fundamental. But what is
hope? Is it reasonable to hope in an uncertain world? What is hope based on? Maybe hoping is just
wishful thinking?

For the Christian community hope is vital because it is founded on the Paschal mystery, the death
and resurrection of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit. This is not just a truth for Christians it
is truth for the world. The death and resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit is truth for the
whole world. It reveals what is true about humanity, the environment, the universe.

If you think this is extravagant it is only so because this claim is made in the New Testament. We
have examples in our readings this morning. Just listen to this from the Book of Revelation:

Grace to you and peace … from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the
ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, … to him be glory and dominion for
ever and ever. Amen.
‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the
Almighty.’

Here we have the overcoming of death. That in itself is pretty extravagant: Jesus is ‘the first born
of the dead’. Jesus is also ‘ruler of the kings of the earth’. All true power and authority flow from
him. In the end all who exercise power will have to answer to him. That’s a bold claim.

Also Jesus ‘… loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood’. By his death Jesus cancels the sin of the
world. Sin is alienation from God, a broken relationship brought about by turning our back on God,
relying on ourselves, saying and doing things and holding attitudes that wound, hurt, and cost others
by our blind selfishness.

We have been reminded in recent days how Pope Francis experienced a great change on his life
when he realised he had made a terrible mistake. When he was in Argentina he remained silent,
failing to endorse the social work of two priests working in the slums. The military junta of the times was infuriated by them. Both suffered terribly at its hands and one was murdered. But Francis
came to know the overwhelming truth for himself that Jesus loved him and had freed him from his
sins by his blood. It seems to have been the source of his great compassion that touched the lives of
millions.

The death and resurrection of Jesus conquers the twin curse of sin and death. As Christians we face,
together with all humanity, sin and death. By faith we know that both have been overcome by Jesus.
As we sing in each eucharist ‘Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’. When
we receive the sacramental bread and wine we have communion with Jesus who has been raised to
eternal life. In the act of holy communion heaven comes down to earth, Jesus’ everlasting life
touches and embraces our mortal life, we experience here and now the joys of heaven. All this is
world-changing faith. We see and experience what is really real.

If this is true then there is hope for the world and hope for ourselves. It is solidily grounded in the
action of God in Jesus and the Holy Spirit who moves within us, always leading us to Jesus, alive
for evermore. As the Gospel reading reminded us, the risen Jesus came to his first disciples in the
locked room and breathed on them the Holy Spirit. Just as God had breathed into Adam ‘and he
became a living being’ so the risen Jesus breathes a second life into us and we are born again. It is a
new way of living which the Church is called to embody. It is a way of living that is filled with
hope.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Service: Canon Bill Croft 27th April 2025. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)

Readings: Acts 5.27-32, Revelation 1.4-8, John 20.19-end