Witnesses, not Spectators

Homily for Easter Sunday, Year A
Acts 10.34a, 37-43 Psalm 118 Colossians 3.1-4 Matthew 28.1-10

Click here to listen to or download an audio (mp3) version of this homily.


If you believe the news these days, the most important thing going on in the world is the upcoming royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Now, I don’t always believe the news, and it seems to me that there are many more pressing issues in our world than a spectacularly planned display of pomp and circumstance in Westminster Abbey. But for whatever reasons, royal weddings have always captured the hearts and imaginations of people all over the world. And it’s hard to ignore all the hype.

One official this week talked about the attitude of people who watch or take part in the royal wedding. He said, “We have to be witnesses in an active sense: the kind of witnesses who really support what's going on. To be a witness is more than to be a spectator, and I hope that'll be part of people's experience at the time of the wedding.” (Archbishop Rowan Williams, quoted in Episcopal News Service, www.episcopalchurch.org) And believe it or not, today’s celebration of Easter should about the same thing.

It’s so easy for us Christians to be spectators. It’s so easy for us to look at things like the death and resurrection of Jesus, even saying that we believe in them, as if we’re watching TV or a movie; we think for a moment about Jesus, then we move on with our lives. It’s so easy for us to hear the commands to love one another and think, I really should do that, and sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. It’s so easy for us to come to church, sit and stand and kneel, maybe sing along on some of the songs, watch what’s going on in the sanctuary, and then go back to our daily lives, and nothing’s changed. We’re spectators, not witnesses.

Think of what it would have been like if Peter and Mary Magdalene and all the others had only been spectators at the resurrection, watching what happened, and then getting back to their lives. We certainly wouldn’t be here today. But they weren’t spectators – they were witnesses. A witness tells other people what they saw. Peter and Mary Magdalene were so transformed by witnessing the resurrection of Jesus that they spread the good news – they ran to tell people about it. And those people told others, who told others, all the way to us today who heard about the resurrection through someone else.

It’s probably true that the royal wedding will get more news coverage this week than any Christian celebrations of Easter. But what really matters is what happens in personal relationships and in people’s hearts, not in the media. We can be witnesses to what we have seen and heard today – witnesses to new life through Jesus Christ – witnesses to a God who loves us more than we can imagine – witnesses to love and forgiveness and peace in a world desperately in need of God. And that witnessing will really transform the world.