Reading 1 - Isaiah 65: 17 - 25

¹⁷ "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. ¹⁸  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. ¹⁹  I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. ²⁰ "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. ²¹ They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. ²³ They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. ²⁴ Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. ²⁵ The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the Lord.

Reading 2 - John 20: 1 - 18

'Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had be en lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."

Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbounai!"(which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.'

Sermon: "The boy who lived"

Does that title mean anything to you?....

Briefly, for those who do not know, and to remind those who do, that title was given to Harry Potter, in the books by J K Rowling. The story begins before Harry was even born, when a wizard went bad - 'as bad as you can go. Worse. Even worse than worse.' That wizard terrified the whole wizarding world with a deadly curse. That wizard, whose name was Lord Voldemort, murdered Harry's father and then threw the curse at Harry, who was just a baby, but Harry's mother threw herself in front of the curse, and she died instead. Voldemort flung the curse again, but instead of killing Harry the curse rebounded on to Voldemort, and mysteriously broke his power. Voldemort disappeared and his reign of terror came to an abrupt end, because the power of Lily Potter's love was so strong. Although his attempt to kill Harry left it's mark, Harry became famous as 'the boy who lived'.

This where the books begin, with the wizarding world rejoicing, sending messenger owls and shooting stars across the sky in an unrestrained burst of joy.

The Bible tells us that before the world began, an Angel went bad, as bad as one could go. Worse. Even worse than worse. The Angel rebelled, turning from light to darkness. When God cast him out of heaven, the Angel began looking for ways to bring death and destruction on the people that God had created from love. The fallen angel lured the first created people so that they disobeyed God - and when they did that, they were hit with a deadly curse. From that time on, the world lived in fear of the curse of death. But when the time was right, a baby who had become famous even before he was born, came into the world. At his birth, stars and angels, kings and wizards, prophets and shepherds rejoiced, for he was the baby who would demonstrate the power of God's love. Even though the curse of death was hurled ferociously at him by King Herod, Jesus was 'the boy who lived'. As the prophet Isaiah had foretold, death was defeated - for a while, at least. However, the curse left its mark on him, as his disciples saw with their own eyes after his resurrection. Those disciples believed it was really important that the whole world should know about Jesus, and should learn how to defeat the curse of death, that they wrote the story down. Not only that, but they loved Jesus so much that they were willing to face all kinds of troubles and trials, even to face their own deaths, for his sake. First of all they had more things to learn and more people to find who would also become Jesus' friends.

Harry also had things to learn and people to find. Until he was 11 years old he had never received a letter in his life, but suddenly letters began arriving for him all over the place, even though his uncle wouldn’t let him have any of them. Whoever sent the letters knew exactly where Harry was, whether in his 'bedroom' that was the cupboard under the stairs, or on a desolate rocky island. In the end it became necessary to deliver the letter in person, and it was an invitation to attend Hogwarts School, following in his parents' footsteps.

God's invitation to us, that we might become friends with him, is equally unstoppable, and is delivered in person by Jesus, the living Word of God.

After receiving his invitation to Hogwarts, Harry still had to get there. Hagrid took him to buy all the things he would need, and gave Harry a ticket for the Hogwarts Express, which left from King"s Cross station. Harry knew there would have to be a way of finding platform 9 3/4 but he didn’t know how until the Weasley family arrived.

Whenever we are unsure of the direction to take, and are confused by the many sights and voices in the world, God sends us help - people who have travelled the way before us, people who will befriend and guide us.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of friends is their willingness to help each other and even to make sacrifices for each other. When Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione were searching for the Philosopher's Stone, which held the secret of eternal life, they found themselves on a huge chess board, and realised that they would have to play "Wizard Chess', a real-life battle. Ron knew he was the best chess player, so he gave instructions to the others about which moves to make, but it came to a point where a really difficult decision had to be made. Ron saw that the only way to save the game was to let himself be taken, that in chess you have to make some sacrifices. As a knight, Ron took the risk and let the White Queen take him, not knowing whether it would just hurt a lot or if he would actually be killed.

Before his arrest, Jesus said to his closest friends, 'This is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.' (John 15:12-13)

Jesus proved his friendship for us when he made the greatest sacrifice of all and lay down his life for us on the cross - the only way that good and God could win.

'The boy who lived' had become the man who had faced his opponents armed only with the power of love, and he bore the scars of the battle. But when it looked as though all was lost, and that the sacrifice had been in vain, the crucified Christ returned to his friends to show them that he was 'the man who lived' for eternity. Stories, like those about Harry Potter, can help us to understand many things about life and death, but they are just stories. The Bible, in the book of Revelation, predicts a day when everyone will see those scars and will realise that everything written about Jesus actually happened, and that he loves us all to death - and beyond.

Jesus asks us all to be his faithful friends, and he calls us to follow him, through all the difficulties and dangers that life may hold for us, to our journey's end, God's kingdom of peace, light and eternal life. This Day of Resurrection means that we won’t need magic to defeat evil, to win the battle and to break the curse - only love.