God’s Economy of Grace

Sunday 5 April 2026, Easter Day, 10.30am Eucharist

‘God’s Economy of Grace’ The Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury

Acts 10: 34–43

Matthew 28: 1–10

‘All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name’.

Everyone.  Peter is addressing the household of Cornelius in the city of Caesarea.  Caesarea is the capital of Roman Judea.  It shares its name with the emperor.  Cornelius was a centurion of Rome’s Italian Cohort.  At an epicentre of the pagan empire and under the roof of one of its military commanders, Peter claims that God shows no partiality.  Everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins.  Everyone.

A decade earlier, soldiers of another cohort are dispatched by their Roman governor to stand guard over a tomb.  A huge boulder has been rolled across the tomb’s entrance, and a seal has been fixed to it.  The soldiers’ task is straightforward.  No one is to enter the tomb.  No one is to leave it.  The governor and the Temple authorities are convinced that friends of the dead man will steal his body and announce a miracle.  So the imperial economy of fear has a strategy: close the tomb; contain its occupant; confine his allies; control the message.

It’s a resilient strategy.  For when the seal is broken and the stone is rolled away, and the soldiers fall to the ground in shock, it is immediately reinvented.  The mouths of the soldiers are stuffed with gold, and, in return, they insist to all and sundry that what had been feared might happen had in fact happened.  The friends of the dead man came and stole his body away.

The imperial economy of fear directs its wealth, deploys its power, and disregards the truth. It contains, confines, and controls.

It happens on the first Easter morning, when the dew of the garden still bears the footprints of the risen Christ.  So we should not be surprised that it happens still.  The imperial economy of fear has found new ways of crucifying its enemies and new ways of enslaving its subjects; it has found new ways to criss-cross the globe, ways even more direct than the roads for which ancient Rome was renowned.  It still directs its wealth, deploys its power, and disregards the truth.  Look no further than the tomb of Jesus.  Then it was sealed and guarded; this morning it is sealed and guarded.  The tomb of Jesus is at the heart of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  Its doors are locked by the Israeli military.  Only five Christians are permitted to enter at a time.  War ravages the region, and public gatherings for worship are forbidden.

Nevertheless, I bring you a word from Jerusalem; I received it on Maundy Thursday, from Richard Sewell, Dean of St George’s College at our sister Anglican Cathedral.  Richard writes from the compound’s underground bomb shelter: ‘Easter will dawn in Jerusalem, but there will still be occupation, and missiles will fly overhead.  Resurrection hope isn’t the solution to everything, but it is the architecture of meaning, whether light is shining or if darkness endures.  We will proclaim ‘Christ is Risen’ as a statement of defiance’.

We need to hear this word from the holy city, from the place where God’s character and purposes were revealed in that first Holy Week, from the place which ought to be the still point of the turning world.  Resurrection hope isn’t the solution to everything, Richard writes.  The frothy effervescence which we mistake for hope has no place in this Easter celebration.  Not while the imperial economy of fear continues to exert its grip on the world, destroying countless human lives, enriching the privileged few, poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink, and trampling truth in the dirt.  While missiles fly and drones fall, woolly lambs, hopping bunnies, and (for that matter) sunny choruses of praise are an affront to the untold suffering of multitudes.

Yet, Richard writes, resurrection hope is the architecture of meaning.  On the first Easter morning a new economy is declared.  The violence to which humans turn so readily is exposed as ultimately powerless, for the stone is rolled away and God raises Jesus from the dead.  ‘Do not be afraid’ says the angel to the women; ‘Do not be afraid’ says Jesus to the women.  The same four words, twice addressed to the same two people.  The constitution of a new economy: do not be afraid.  The worst has already happened.  The worst has already been worsted.

We live within this architecture, within God’s new economy.  It’s an economy of grace, an economy of loving forgiveness, an economy of loving solidarity.  ‘Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee’ says Jesus.  ‘My brothers’: men like Peter, men who on Good Friday deserted Jesus and fled.  There has been no repentance.  They have made no apology.  But in the economy of grace that doesn’t matter.  These weak and selfish men are now the brothers of the one whom God has raised.  Small wonder that when Peter stands up in the house of Cornelius he speaks of forgiveness for all.

And it’s an economy of right worship.  When the women catch sight of Jesus they fall down before him, just like the wise men who came from the East in search of an infant King.  The wise do not collude with the economy of fear by worshipping power or wealth or fame or beauty.  The wise worship that over which they have no control, that which surpasses their capacity to comprehend, that which comes not from the dark side of the moon but from the bright side of eternity.  They worship the only one worthy of worship: the Holy One of God.

It’s Easter morning.  Welcome to the economy of grace!  Welcome to the economy which must prevail.  Remember Peter in the house of Cornelius; Peter at the heart of empire; Peter in the home of one of its foot soldiers.  Remember Peter standing up, shrugging off fear, and proclaiming that God raised Jesus on the third day.  And remember that Cornelius and his Roman household were baptised in the name of Jesus.  So: look around you.  See only your brothers and sisters.  Look around you.  Violence cannot triumph.  Look around you.  God will do a new thing.  Do not be afraid.

For Christ is risen.  A statement realized in bread and wine, but a statement of defiance indeed, a statement flung at the cruelty, dishonesty and corruption that make a Hell of God’s Earth; a statement flung at the partisans of empire and its economy of fear; and a statement that we utter with and on behalf of those whose worship is contained, confined, and controlled, on behalf of those whose voices are silent today.

This morning, the Holy Sepulchre should resound with words offered in innumerable tongues.  Many of these words I don’t understand, but these few I do, in Greek, Arabic, and English.  So:

Christos Anestei…Alithos anestei.  Al Massih Qam…Hakkan qam.  Christ is risen…He is risen indeed.

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Amen.