Easter Ed and Tolkien

 John 20:1-18.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the reality TV show, The Apprentice, with Lord Alan Sugar.

Lord Sugar gives the young hopefuls business tasks to complete.

And perhaps part of the fun of the series is that often they turn out to be numpties and get fired.

We can enjoy laughing at their disasters and the stupid suggestions they make.

 

One of the recent tasks in series 19 was for the candidates to have a crack at creating a new Easter egg, before one or more of them eggs-itted the process.

 

The candidates discussed that Easter lacked a hero character.

Where was the Father Christmas of Easter?

They mused: “We don’t really have a main character for Easter.”

The Easter bunny might have felt rather slighted by this, but Frederick suggested having a mascot called ‘Easter Ed’ – who I think also turned out to be an astronaut, obviously.

It was a rather confused pitch for an Easter Egg based on the Space Man Easter Ed who is going to be the Father Christmas of Easter who gives nice well-behaved children chocolate, and takes the market by storm by becoming the new hero of Easter.  

 

But, of course, Christians around the nation were screaming at their TVs that Jesus is and ought to be the hero of Easter – and Christmas come to that!  

Jesus is the real true hero of Easter.

 

The historical case for his death and resurrection is compelling.

The evidence of the empty tomb and Jesus’ resurrection appearances have transformed countless lives.  

 

The story of Jesus is, as the film title put it, The Greatest Story Ever told.

In fact, all our stories could be called echoes of the gospel story, which is the story of fall and redemption – of paradise lost and regained.

 

Tolkien once suggested that we could think of Jesus’ story as a true fairy story.

It has the sudden joyous turn – the opposite of a catastrophe - the happily every after which we associate with the fairy story.

And that ending which we all long for, which we dare to hope is true, is what Jesus’ death and resurrection secures.

 

As Tolkien has Sam say in The Lord of the Rings:

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"
A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land.”

 

The Easter story is the ultimate reversal:

It is life from death.

 

Jesus’ story is also the ultimate journey story and quest.

He has come from heaven and gone back again – but now as the God-Man.

He has gone, as it were, from riches to rags to riches again.

And it was all a rescue mission for us.  

He who was rich beyond all measure yet for love’s sake became poor.

He lost everything and gave his very life, that we who were poor, through his poverty, might become rich – that we might live – that we might gain heaven and eternal life.

 

That first Easter death was defeated.

The monsters of sin and death were slayed.

The sting of death was drawn as sin and death were overcome.

The ogre death was tamed.

And death is now a servant who brings Jesus’ people into his nearer presence.  

 

You may know that in classic theatre – in Shakespear for example – there are tragedies and comedies.

In tragedies, everyone dies.

In comedies, they get married.

 

The death of Jesus, the promising young preacher, certainly seems like a tragedy.

The apparent tragedy of Good Friday is overcome.

The universe turns out to be a Comedy – and there’s even the wedding supper of the Lamb, the marriage of the people of God, the church, the bride, to Jesus the bridegroom.

Jesus is our victorious champion who has killed the dragon and got the girl.  

 

In the most surprising reversal ever, the crucified one is risen as the Lord of Life.  

 

The Easter story even had a case of mistaken identity.

Mary thinks that Jesus is the Gardener.

And in a way he is.

Jesus is the New and Better Adam who will restore Eden, only better.

Where Adam sinned, Jesus undid our sin.

Jesus is the human being who will rule the world faithfully.

Jesus plants the word of the gospel in us which grows and bears fruit.

And our bodies become seeds which are buried in the ground in death and then flower in New Creation.

 

Easter, it turns out, is not just for good well-behaved children who have been kind, but for all of us.

Jesus in fact came for sinners like you and me on a rescue mission.

 

So Easter already has the ultimate hero: The crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ.

 

And this is more than a story to entertain or sell chocolate.

We’re not just to admire Jesus or even to seek to emulate him.

We’re to trust him.

 

The true story of Jesus can be your story and mine.

It can give meaning and purpose to the story of our lives.

Easter is the great reality – the story of the cosmos and all God’s purposes – in the light of which we can make sense of our world and our lives.

 

Will you make Jesus your own?

Will you live in the light of his story?

Will you accept the new resurrection life he has won for all who will trust him?

 

And so we can rejoice afresh in Jesus the Hero of Easter and this greatest story ever told today – and perhaps even eat chocolate to the glory of his name.

Amen.