Delivered in Magdalene College Chapel, Cambridge

I begin this evening by reading some words from a book by a famous Irish author, Miles na Gopaleen. He writes:

Let me record an odd little adventure which befell me recently. I went down the country to visit some old friends - by invitation, let me add. A pleasant married couple, well set up. The husband, a most affable man, was fond of a good company and ... was most flahooluck, in the accepted sense. As midnight approached I made the usual dishonest remarks about getting into a hotel. Under no circumstances, of course - a room had been got ready for me in the house. So there had, but it was three in the morning before I got to it. It was ten o'clock when I awoke. One does not take liberties late abed in other people's houses: that is another of the snags. Though very tired, I arose, performed a careful toilet and went downstairs. The lady of the house was in the dining room and greeted me brightly. Yes, it was a beautiful morning. What would I like for breakfast? Sundry grunts and noises upstairs indicated that the host was astir. I heard him heavily pounding down the stairs just as his wife was handing me a glass of orange juice. He came into the room in a dressing gown. Then it happened. Having given me what appeared to be a nod, he turned to his wife and said:

'Alla po anidee tie peat.'

Family double-talk, perhaps - but the thing disturbed me. I felt an intruder.

'I do not,' the wife said.

'Glauw acack ant soho mouse as assopa,' he said. 'Gowl a gurda.'

'You'd know yourself if you kept your wits about you,' the wife said.

'Gumpa slourish haga peat, chacha peat,' he growled.

'Well, I suppose we'll have to,' she replied.

She had been sitting and stood up. A horrible fear clawed my heart. She was going to leave the room!

'Gushka goms,' he said.

And she did leave the room, giving me a strange smile. I was alone with this man!.

'Choora gushka goms peat,' he said to me - amiably, I thought. I nodded and smiled. I hastily averted this smile, fearing it was too ghastly, and quickly foostered out a packet of cigarettes. He took one. The lighting of a cigarette gave me a few more seconds in which to do fast thinking.

'Carda fying realis koo foind cha kaka peat,' he observed.

Salvation! I heard the footsteps of the wife returning. She came into the room carrying his orange juice. He took the glass but did not drink. Instead he put his fingers in it and took out two rows of teeth which he deftly installed in his mouth. 'It really is a beautiful morning,' he said to me in perfect English. 'The very morning for a game of golf.' [Further cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn, pp. 34-35]

Now if Forest Gump is allowed to say daft things like 'Life is like a box of chocolates', I see no reason at all why I should not be allowed to construct an equally strange, if hopefully not so daft, simile - Easter is like God speaking with his teeth in. Throughout Holy Week we have heard the story of how Jesus travelled to Jerusalem where he was acclaimed by the crowds, how he and his disciples shared a supper together, how they kept watch together on that fateful night when Jesus was betrayed into the hands of the authorities. And on Good Friday we knelt at the foot of the cross where Jesus Christ died, as a common criminal. We have tried to make sense of these events, tried to understand what sort of Christ it might be that would find a throne in the form of a cross. But as we heard the story we were also aware of the ending. We knew that Easter day was not far around the corner. What must it have been like for the first disciples. They had given up their livelihoods, moved away from home and family and followed this Jesus. Gradually, they thought they had begun to understand who Jesus really was. The entry into Jerusalem must have brought them great excitement. But the Good Friday event must have left them shattered, desolated, confused, without hope. Everything they had worked for, so they must have thought, had disappeared in a death on the cross. The poignant cry of the dying Jesus: 'It is finished' must have rung ever so painfully in their ears.

One can imagine the dejected group of disciples just about coming to the realisation that they must return to their homes and pick up the pieces, when yet again their world is turned on its head. Matthew in his gospel tells us that the women went early in the morning to anoint the body of Jesus, and they found the tomb empty. An angel speaks to them, telling them that Jesus has risen. And their reaction: They departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. The initial reaction was one of fear. The one who performed miracles died, I saw him die, how could he have been raised from the dead. Our world does not work like this; the world in which we are in total control does not allow for this state of affairs. Then the penny drops. This is not a world in which we are in complete control. This is a world dependent on a God who is wholly other. This is a God who creates reality. This is a God who in raising Jesus from death, brings a new fact to reality. Jesus has been given victory over the grave and this is a victory in which we can all share.

This new fact in reality is what I'm calling God speaking with his teeth in. So often we find it difficult to know what God is saying. We hear the voice of the world calling strongly, we are tempted to believe that humans really do have things under control. We listen for the voice of God but we do not hear, and when we do hear it is often beyond our understanding. But on Easter day we hear clearly, because God speaks clearly. We hear a God who says I have created reality, and in the resurrection of my son I have now added a new fact to reality. 'Death is swallowed up in victory'.

And how do we react to the Easter fact. I expect it is just as Matthew described it - one of fear and great joy. Great joy because of the victory given to us in the act of the resurrection, great joy because in the resurrection Jesus Christ is definitively shown to be the Son of God, and great joy because on Easter day the author of reality speaks to us clearly. But there is also fear. Fear because of the awesome might of this God who creates reality; fear because we are all too well aware that by the end of hall we will once again forget the God on whom we are dependent.

The world cries loudly, it distracts us. But on this day above all other in the Christian calendar, we are dramatically shown what sort of reality we are engaged in, and moreover, we are given a hope that is beyond hope, a promise that is above every other promise. For on this day 'death has lost its sting'. And although we stand deafened by the language of the world, we do on this day, hear God speaking with his teeth in.