He is risen! He is risen indeed!
John 20: 1-9
The Word:https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040526.cfm
O God, who on this day,
through your Only Begotten Son,
have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity,
grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord's Resurrection
may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit,
rise up in the light of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Sopn,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
(Collect of Easter morning)
It seems to me that any discussion of the resurrection of Jesus must lead inevitably to reflection on the sacraments. The resurrection, as strange as this concept may seem, is indeed a matter of faith. What we believe and proclaim this night and by our very existence as Christians is outside the limits of science, technology, and verifiable proof.
The fact that the
historical Jesus existed in space and time more than 2,000 years ago is
established by historians and scripture scholars. But any modern discussion of Jesus seems to
end at the time of his crucifixion and burial.
Going beyond this
historical fact and talk of this same man coming back from the dead in a
visible form is beyond science and may seem to many like nothing more than a
myth made up by desperate Christians who wanted to carry on the impact Jesus of
Nazareth had upon so many. However, if that were true anyone with common sense
would agree that it would have disappeared centuries ago.
Belief in the fact of
the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is absolutely the foundation of
Christianity. St. Paul reminds the
Christians of Corinth that: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching
is in vain and your faith is in vain.”
In his book, Jesus of
Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes:
The Christian faith
stands or falls with the truth of the testimony that Christ is risen from the
dead. If this were taken away, it would still be possible to piece together
from Christian tradition a series of interesting ideas about God and men . . .
a kind of religious world view. Jesus would be a failed religious leader, who
despite his failure remains great and can cause us to reflect. But he would
then remain purely human, and his authority would extend only so far as his
message is of interest to us . . . In other words, we would be alone. Our own judgment would be the highest value.
Only if Jesus is
risen has anything really new occurred that changes the world and the situation
of mankind. Then he becomes the criterion on which we can rely. For then God has truly revealed himself.”
We are here to proclaim this night before a world that is saturated with, the idol of technology, a distorted view of humanity, aggressive independence, lust for power and dominance, that we believe first that God does exist, that his existence is confirmed by the testimony of thousands of generations before us who believed as we now believe, that God who took on a human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, who came to this earth to face the darkness of sin and death, through the sacrifice of his own life on the cross, descended to the lowest level of human sin, and in his resurrection transformed despair into the hope of eternity.
We are able to say with Christ, that in the face of sin and death, we have won the battle. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, not even death will hold us. That God has had the last word and it is life. This Easter we gather and claim to be his followers. A part of me is envious of the Apostles experience. Gradually, through convincing appearances of the risen Lord, the collective and shared moments in his presence, they came to believe and ultimately to die for who became for them Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ not only was but also is. And if Christ IS present and alive today, how do we come to know him, to touch him, to believe in him?
It is a constant point of the resurrection appearances before the Apostles and woman followers, that not only was Jesus alive and transformed in a strange existence between the worlds of the spirit outside space and time but also could be so present to those early followers, that they were convinced to see him was not imaginary or dreamlike but so real that they “ate and drank with him” as St John testifies. They could see him, touch him, hear him and share food with him. Can we still encounter this living God?
Our celebration of the sacraments of the Church, all seven of them, have come down to us through the lived experience of the Church. It is the risen Christ we encounter not in some symbolic form but in a real and touchable way.
That God offers his physical embrace through the waters of baptism, the anointing with oil and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that he unites a couple in marriage who bring new life and a higher level of selfless love into the world, he ordains a man to serve in his name in priesthood, he heals the sick, forgives sin in Reconciliation, brings hope to the dying, and in a deeply personal way he feeds us with himself in the Eucharist.
All the sacraments are God's physical and tangible embrace. All of our sacraments have a physical element to them, and we are reminded that the risen Christ is not in some distant heaven but is present to us where we gather in his name, as we do so tonight, he is present to us and through his grace we can be transformed more in his image and likeness. We are a resurrection people.
The good news of Easter brings a time of hope to us. The invitation to every one of us is to have hope and to share in the life of His Church.
So, what are we to do with this "good news" of the resurrection? We are to be Mary Magdalene and carry the news to those in fear and hiding. To be Peter and John and eagerly run to the tomb to confirm their speculation. To be like all who have gone before us and died for this faith or lived this out in heroic Christian virtue. We're all called to be holy and to be saints in our own right.
With God, nothing is impossible and the resurrection has proved this to be true.
Christ is risen
indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia!
