The Church’s Year gives us a whole 50 days to digest the meaning of Easter. Once again we have the time to absorb its meaning into our lives. The marvellous thing about the liturgical year is that we get a go at things on an annual basis. If we don’t get it this year …. maybe next year?

Easter Day itself gives us the amazing fact of Jesus risen from the dead. The tomb is empty and there is no point in looking for the living among the dead. But what does all this mean? Is it a one off isolated event? Is it something that simply happened a long time ago.? Is it anything at all to do with us, now? Today’s readings start to unpack the issues raised by such questions.

The risen Jesus greets those first disciples. ‘Peace be with you.’ Just a greeting? If one reads and re-reads John’s Gospel one learns that nothing is ‘just’ anything. When Jesus spoke with his disciples in the upper room, chapters 13-17 in John, Jesus says this,

‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.’ (John14.27)

Peace, or ‘wholeness of life’ is a gift. Something to be received. Something that enters the heart. It stills the troubled mind and it casts out fear. It is life changing. Jesus, risen from the dead, says to those first disciples, and to us, ‘Peace be with you’.

Then he says, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ John’s Gospel from beginning to end binds together the Father and the Son. It focusses with unerring accuracy on the identity of Jesus. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the one sent by the Father. As the most famous verse in the Bible puts it, John 3.16, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’

To know God is to know who Jesus is. To know Jesus is to know God, the nature and purposes of God. As John 3.16 says, the purpose of sending Jesus is love. A few years ago at a meeting of The Peterborough Theological Society we had a lecture about John’s Gospel. The speaker, a world renowned New Testament scholar, said this, ‘John’s Gospel is the gospel of love’. It struck me then and it keeps coming into my mind, ‘John’s Gospel is the gospel of love. He uses the word ‘love’ in his Gospel 57 times. (Mark has the word six times, Matthew ten, Luke eleven. John uses it more than twice as often as all three other Gospels put together.)

In John, the Father, we learn, loves the Son. The Son, Jesus, loves the Father. The Father loves the world so much. Jesus loves the disciples. Love is demonstrated in the works of Jesus: water turned into new wine; an official’s son saved from imminent death; a man’s sight restored; Lazarus raised from the dead. What is the meaning of all this? Love. John’s Gospel is the gospel of love.

Then, of course, there is the greatest work of all, the work that finishes, completes the work: the death of Jesus. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep whom he knows and loves. All this is Jesus’ work but, as he says, he only does what he sees the Father doing. Jesus’ life and teaching reveals to us, makes plain to us, what we cannot see, cannot grasp, but only glimpse: the heart of God, the mystery that is God, the fire of love.

Jesus, risen from the dead, will confront Peter with a searching question, ‘Peter, do you love me?’ Three times he asks it. If your name happens to be Peter perhaps you hear this question better. But it is a question to each and all: ‘Do you love me?’. This is a resurrection question, a resurrection challenge, a resurrection call. Because it comes from Jesus, risen from the dead, it comes from the very heart of God and pierces our hearts too.

As God loves, so we are called to love. The resurrection of Jesus has everything to do with us. In the upper room on Maundy Thursday, Jesus washed the disciples feet. He explains its meaning to them:

‘So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet … I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ (John 13.14, 34-35)

Those who have faith in Jesus, who know who he is, the Son of the Father, the Word made flesh, the one who is in the Father’s heart, – these know they are changed. Their lives take on new meaning and purpose. They are transfigured and are being transfigured by the Father’s love shown in Jesus.

Time and again, John in his Gospel uses the construction ‘as … so’.

 ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’

‘As I have loved you, so you are to love one another.’

As the Father’s love through Jesus spreads through the world, so the peace and love we receive from Jesus, risen from the dead, spreads through us to those around.

All this is life changing and life giving. It is what John in his Gospel calls eternal living. It is the reason he wrote the Gospel.

‘ … these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’ (John 20.31)

Service: Canon Bill Croft, 16th April 2023. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)

Readings: 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-end