Readings: Acts 10: 34-42; Matthew 28:1-10
In an email to my friend Bruce Barber, whom I regard as one of the best theologians in Australia, I asked ‘What should I preach about on Easter Day?’ His answer was ‘Read Ebeling 'The Nature of Faith’. The chapter on Jesus as 'The Basis of Faith'. Just magnificent. Never need to read anything else! To my shame and chagrin Ebeling’s book was not on my shelves but I eventually got a secondhand copy for the princely sum of $1. The chapter Bruce refers to is very good. It speaks of the resurrection as a metaphor for Jesus’ presence this side of his death. Ebeling points out that the appearances in the biblical record were only to those who were accepting of his claims. As to the factuality of the resurrection he says it would be quite wrong to think that the first believers had faith made easy for them by a miraculous event. The appearances are not a consequence of his resurrection. The idea of resurrection springs from his appearances. The resurrection is about the transition from the faith of Jesus to faith in Jesus as the way of life, the truth of life, the truth of very life itself.

Let me try and explain it in a simpler way. When I was a teenager I used to attend Easter camps where I would sing with great gusto
He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today.
He walks me and talks with me along life’s narrow way .
He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart.
You ask me how I know he lives?
He lives within my heart!

The Christian faith is about Christ being alive in you and me. It is as simple and as profound as that
Sixty five years later I can still sing the song, albeit with a much different and deeper meaning. I am after all no longer a teenager. But the meaning is essentially the same. Jesus of Nazareth is as alive for me as ever he was, pointing to a world as God would like it to be. Easter is not for me about the resuscitation of a corpse. It is about the relevance of Jesus for the present day. We celebrate the resurrection not as an objective event but as a subjective experience of the presence of Jesus. He is as alive today as he has ever been.

Before I leave my teenager experiences let me quickly comment on a major difference between what I understood then and what I understand now. It is about the words ‘Salvation to impart’. I am still passionate about salvation but in a very different sense. In those days I understood salvation in terms individual salvation, of some people being saved for some other world according to whether one believed in Jesus. I am no longer concerned about individual salvation. As I outlined in the Lenten Series I now see salvation in terms of salvation of the species - something Archbishop William Temple made clear in the 1930s: ‘Christianity is not one more religion of individual salvation… It is the one and only religion of world redemption.’ (Readings in St John’s gospel P48) ‘God so loved the world.’ This is very different from traditional ideas of salvation.

I personally have three problems with individual salvation that pivots around the death of the individual and his/her transition to heaven or hell – the destination being determined by whether or not the person is ‘saved’.

(1) Firstly, it is incredibly self centred and self centredness has no place within the Christian faith. Jesus is rightly described as ‘The man for others’.

(2) Secondly, the popular idea of salvation being attained by the substitution of Christ on the cross postulates a violent and vindictive God who punishes us for sin and who demands a sacrifice. This is a very primitive idea of God.

(3) Thirdly, if we privatise salvation to life after death, then economics and politics, poverty and injustice, and the big questions of life are of little or no significance. The only thing that matters is that ‘when the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there’. This view of salvation is an embarrassment to those of us who see Jesus as the way, the truth and the life – as the ‘human one’. Salvation is not about some people being saved for life in another world. It is about the well being of all creatures in this world. It is about fullness of life. Irenaeus said it in the second century. ‘The glory of God is every creature fully alive!’

(4) And the fourth problem that I have with individual salvation is that it is almost obsessive about death. The death of a child or a person at an early age is tragic. The death of a person my age is and should be one of the most natural things in the world. It is part and parcel of the evolutionary process. Without death there would be no hands, no brain, no consciousness. Death is part and parcel of evolutionary life. The problem with the traditional ideas of salvation is that they are centred on the individual and the death thereof, which of course immediately leads to the question which some of you may have: ‘What do I expect to happen at death?’ I have no idea! I have little or no idea of what happens at death but it does not include individual life in some kind of heavenly paradise. It may be that after death consciousness lives on in some kind of collective consciousness. But I really don’t know nor am I greatly concerned. My present approach is that death is a part of life, it is part of the evolutionary process and I would die content if I had in some way contributed to the future of homo humanus. One could see this as being ‘in God’ after death, a part of the creative process towards fullness of life. In this sense one could then live on after death. Homo sapiens is not the end of the process. It is but a step in the creative process as manifested and revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man, the human one. Salvation is not about the salvation of the individual. It is about the salvation of the species.

Does the species need saving?

Six months ago one of Australia’s most respected scientists died. His name was Frank Fenner. He was a brilliant microbiologist who pioneered the eradication of smallpox and in 1980 had the honour of announcing the global eradication of smallpox to the UN's World Health Assembly. He will be remembered by some as the scientist who injected himself with the myxomatosis virus to show it was harmless to humans, and by others as the one who established the Centre for Environmental Studies in 1976. But he probably will be remembered most as the person who said that homo sapiens has only a slight chance of surviving the century ‘The human species is likely to go the same way as many of the species we have seen disappear – probably within the next hundred years.’

It would be a bold man who would deride Fenner as a fool, but that is what many politicians and journalists are in effect doing. To me he speaks the gospel truth and stands as a Jeremiah like figure, not foretelling the future but saying that unless we do something there will be no future. Fenner’s long time associate Stephen Boyden says, ‘Frank may be right but while there’s a glimmer of hope, we must keep working.’

And if the present debate on climate change is anything to go by Frank Fenner may well be right. Few are concerned about global warming. The concern of most is whether the compensation for the carbon tax will be sufficient to maintain the status quo. It has reached the ridiculous stage of ‘I am in favour of climate change measures providing they do not affect my way of life’. The aim of a carbon tax is to institute change and a carbon tax that does not institute change is not worth enacting. The Business Council of Australia says it will not support a carbon tax if it affects its competitive advantage.. It’s like saying ‘I will not love until everyone loves because it outs me at a disadvantage. You love because of your belief that it is the truth about life. You either believe that climate change has enormous potential to affect the life of our grandchildren’s children or you don’t. To see it in terms of competitive advantage is typical of the confused thinking of those who worship the great god Market.

And climate change is but one of the challenges facing us. Destruction of species, an exponentially increasing population, increasing competition for resources and sustainability are but a few of the others.

And what I am suggesting today is that the Christian faith is about being saved from destruction to fullness of life – homo humanus as over and against homo sapiens with the way of Jesus being the way to go. Salvation is not about pie in the sky when you die. It is about the salvation of the species. It is about saving the human species from becoming another dead branch on the evolutionary tree. Easter is about salvation of the species.

To those who suggest that I this morning have not dealt with the biblical record, I beg to differ. A common phrase used by the biblical writers is ‘Go into Galilee and there you will see him’. The earliest edition of Mark’s gospel, which was in itself the earliest gospel, was just this. No appearances – just an angel dressed in dazzling white saying ‘Go into Galilee and there you will see him’. Galilee was the location of their ordinary everyday life. That promise is alive and well today. Jesus lives in the midst of our society calling us to new life in the face of destruction.

In the Lenten Series , I took a poll on whether people were optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the human species. I realize now that it was a confusing question because it left out the element of hope. – a word that is not found in the gospels but is peppered thorough the Epistles, the best known of which is probably from Colossians 1 ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’. Vaclav Havel puts it in an interesting way. He says that optimism is the belief that everything will turn out as you like it. Pessimism is the reverse. But there is a third way, that of hope. This is where you struggle regardless of the outcome. In this sense then Christians are neither optimists or pessimists. They are purveyors of hope. I am not optimistic but as a Christian I live in hope and this is precisely what Easter is about: the dawning of hope in the face of destruction. Without Jesus of Nazareth and the way of life he offers I am very pessimistic. And to those who are hopelessly optimistic I would remind you of the words of Lloyd Geering. ‘ Those who turn their backs completely on Christianity in all its forms and who refuse to acknowledge our common indebtedness to the cultural matrix out of which the modern world has emerged are cutting themselves off from their cultural and spiritual roots. As plants without roots wither and die so do cultures that forget their past’ (p 69 Coming Back to Earth) It is only one more step to becoming another dead branch on the evolutionary tree. The philosopher Nietzsche receives a bad press within the Church because he said ‘God is Dead’ This is a pity because I hear him saying much the same as Geering ‘We face the dissolution of all values’. I hear him saying that there is a distinct possibility of homo sapiens becoming another dead branch on the evolutionary tree, and it points up for me the meaning and significance of this day. It is about the salvation of the world, new life in the face of destruction. It is about Jesus as homo humanus and that we are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world.