In the past eight days we have been on an emotional rollercoaster. We started with a happy palm procession from the top of Primrose Hill last Sunday – but later on the same morning we had to shout “Crucify!” as we took part in the passion reading from Luke’s gospel.

On Thursday morning the clergy, Readers and many laypeople of the London diocese went to St Paul’s Cathedral for a joyful celebration, renewing ordination vows and witnessing the Bishop of London blessing the oils we will all use in the coming year for baptism, confirmation and anointing the sick. That evening, here in St Mary’s we kept a solemn commemoration of the Last Supper, washing one another’s feet in obedience to Jesus’ command. That service ended in sadness and darkness as we stripped the church and prayed in the candle-lit chapel, remembering how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane and was deserted by all his friends when he was arrested.

On Good Friday we had a deeply moving three-hour service of meditation on the death of Christ. In the middle of it we wandered around the church visiting stations where we could pray, light candles, burn incense, hammer nails, watch videos, or just stand before those extraordinary skull pictures painted by Patrice. We knelt one by one at the foot of the cross as we remembered how Jesus spent himself without reserve for love of us.

Then yesterday we had a break from these emotionally draining liturgies and turned to physical labour. A crowd of volunteers spent the morning cleaning and polishing, restoring the church to its usual beauty with flowers and uncovered paintings and statues, and Linda made a miniature Easter garden, all in readiness for the first eucharist of Easter which we celebrated at dawn this morning. This service is the oldest Christian liturgy, beginning with lighting the Easter candle from a new fire, proclaiming the resurrection with a joyful noise, and renewing our baptismal vows. It was at this service in the early Church that new Christians were baptized after three years of preparation, forty days of fasting and a long night of prayer. There was no mistaking then that to be baptized as a Christian meant dying to one’s old life and rising with Christ to new and eternal life.

I for one feel that I have lived through an incredibly rich and eventful week. I often stopped in the course of it to think that many millions of people around the world were doing the same things at the same time – waving palms, washing feet, venerating the cross, renewing baptismal vows. But none of that constitutes news. The celebration of Easter as a religious festival is simply regarded nowadays as a minority interest, mostly benign, but sometimes dangerous or just plain bonkers.

We have to recognise that by gathering in St Mary’s Church in Holy Week and on Easter morning, we are actually being rather countercultural. Our grandparents may have gone to church because it was the respectable thing to do, but we attend by choice, unless we are young enough to be here because our parents made us come.
A sociologist would no doubt want to ask each of us why we are here, and what exactly it is that we believe. Rationalist enquirers start with what goes in our head. They assume that at a suitable point in our growing up we examined all the collected evidence for a variety of worldviews, and then we rationally adopted the one that has the most ironclad proof. Of course one problem with this notion is that there is no evidence for either atheism or faith that clinches the matter. Applying scientific methods to the process of making faith commitments doesn’t work – and belief in a materialist and meaningless universe is just as much a faith commitment as any other.

I for one don’t know any person who has ever proceeded to change their faith in this way. What usually happens is much more personal. Someone is brought up in a particular religious tradition and at some point they decide its rituals have become meaningless, so they drift away. Or something terrible happens in their life and they feel that there is no comfort in what they had been taught to believe. Or they find that the teaching they received as a child doesn’t seem to help with the choices they must face as an adult.

A different scenario is that a person who is brought up without faith is invited by a friend to visit a place of worship, and they find there a sense of community that they have found nowhere else. Or in a time of trouble and confusion in their life, the assurance of God’s generous love is transformative for them. A number of people enter or stay in religious traditions because of the beauty of music and art or the helpfulness of familiar rituals. For many people, the challenge of becoming parents and thinking about how they want to raise their children prompts them to re-examine the religious tradition in which they or their partner were raised.

Now, note that none of these changes involves any kind of mental certainty about a particular credal statement. What moves people in and out of religious faith and practice is rather different. It has to do with personal relationships, community values, life events, moral decision-making, a longing for the beautiful. New churchgoers are often very surprised to find themselves among people who can say with confidence that such and such is true – they are not so sure about that, but they simply know that where those believers are is a good place to be.

Mary Magdalene might be the patron saint of the people I am talking about, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they form the majority in most congregations. Mary Magdalene was not a student of the scriptures, like that other Mary in the story of Martha and Mary of Bethany, the woman who sat at the feet of Jesus to listen to his teaching and was the sister of Lazarus.

This Mary, Mary of Magdala, is known chiefly for her strong emotions. She has been portrayed in western Christian art as a vivid, strong woman with long flowing red hair. All we know about her past is that Jesus cured her of seven devils. Whatever was wrong with her, and I’m glad we don’t know what kind of physical or mental agony she suffered, Jesus turned her life around and she became one of his most loyal supporters.

She followed him out of a gratitude that deepened into love and devotion. She showed her courageous faithfulness when Jesus was arrested and killed. When the hand-picked disciples who had been trained for leadership deserted him, she stayed at the cross, and she was among the first of the myrrh-bearers who went to his tomb as soon as the Sabbath was over. Her actions were driven by grief and longing.

When the head-knowledge of the other disciples said it was all over and there was no hope any more, her heart-knowledge drew her to be near the Lord, even in his tomb. Hers was a faith born of heart’s desire. She needed to be in the place where Jesus was.

When the mysterious stranger in the garden called her by name and it dawned on her that it must somehow inexplicably be Jesus himself, her natural instinct was to embrace him. But he told her that she couldn’t keep the risen Christ to herself. He had to ascend to the Father so that his Spirit could be poured out on everyone all the time. And she was the one to take this message to the discouraged band of Jesus’ followers.

Mary Magdalene, whose love and desire had drawn her to follow Jesus even to the grave, was to set down her pot of embalming myrrh and instead be the bearer of the impossible good news. She speaks to us now. She doesn’t argue or debate or prove anything. Her message is simple: I have seen the Lord. She met him because she loved him enough to follow him even when it was all hopeless. She went to the tomb as if she would find him still alive, and there he was.
I said that Mary Magdalene could be the patron saint of those who come to church not quite knowing what they believe. If you are here, it is because you desire something. It may be knowledge, or comfort, or forgiveness, or familiar rituals, or peace of heart, or just a good and happy feeling to share with those you love. But somehow you have been drawn to come here. You have chosen to be in church on Easter morning to hear once again an impossible piece of news proclaimed as true. Love has conquered death, good has conquered evil, God has begun the new creation and we are now a part of it.

If it seems too much to believe, as it certainly was for Jesus’ disciples on that first Easter, follow Mary Magdalene’s example and act as if you believed it. Go looking for God even where you doubt he may be found. Follow your heart’s desire for a personal relationship with God even if you can’t make rational sense of it. Share the joy of the resurrection together with this community of would-be as well as firm believers. Be ready to be surprised by the gifts of forgiveness and welcome.

It is only by being drawn into relationship, into a community, that we learn that we are loved. We can’t be argued into knowing Jesus. Where love is, there is God, as the choir sang on Thursday night. We may have put Jesus in the grave but we can’t keep him there. He surprises us by being found among the living, and he is here this morning, calling us his friends and drawing us to him. We may not be able to explain it, but we know that he is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Amen