Easter Sunday: Solemnity of the Resurrection of The Lord
Speculation! Speculation!! Speculation!!! Around every Easter time, people begin to speculate. For example, last weeks’ TIME magazine carried a cover article titled, What if there’s No Hell? In March this year, Bart Ehrman (the author of God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer), published a new book entitled, Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. In this book he claims that, "Christians intent on establishing what was right to believe did so by telling lies." So are we present today in this church on Easter Sunday because of a lie? Really? Can a lie sustain a way of life for two thousand years? For example, this year we have 23 people who came into the church at the vigil. I was in the confessional with some of these men, women and young people. A lie does not explain the personal transformation in them. A lie could not explain the burning in their hearts when they hear the name of Jesus. A lie could not explain the inexplicable love in their hearts. A lie could not account for the tears in their eyes. A lie cannot account for the steps they took to the altar. As a matter of fact, a lie does not account for us coming together today. This community, this gathering, our coming together, for me, is the greatest evidence of the resurrection of Christ.
Today, I want to offer three different way of looking at Easter.
1. One way to reflect on the significance of the Resurrection of Christ is to reflect on the opposite of it. In other words, what if Good Friday was the last we heard of Christ? What if the tomb never opened again? What if the Mary and the women at the tomb sat there day after day, week after week and then finally went home in despair? What would it mean if the tomb was the end of an otherwise eventful life of a man named Jesus? The best way to answer this question is to take our minds to a time when we buried someone we love; or we accompanied someone through a terminal illness and ultimately, death; or think of a parent that has lost a child; or think of a person who lost his or her spouse after thirty, fourty, or fifty years of marriage. And now imagine not being able to say, “I’ll see you again!” Or, think about a time when you fell seriously into sin – an infidelity, a hurtful lie, a damning betrayal, or an act of absolute selfishness. And now imagine that there were no second chances! Or think of your child battling failure or a loved one battling depression, meaninglessness and darkness. And now, imagine that you could not offer any hope to the person through prayer. If the tombstone was never moved by the power of the resurrection, then all this would be true. There would no life, there would be no second chances and there would be no hope for tomorrow. But thanks be to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ – the tomb is empty!
2. A second way of understand Easter is to see it as the apex of human possibilities! Easter brings to our awareness the crossroad where the God and human beings meet. Let me explain. St. Paul says in today’s second reading, “if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.” On the one hand, human beings are constantly trying to progress upward in life. We try to defy age, space, time, and human abilities. Sometimes we do this in good ways such a medicine and technology and other times we use destructive means such as war, competition and power struggles. However, the bottom line is that in the good and the destructive efforts we are trying to reach a higher place than we are. The next richest person on earth will be the one who finds a way to be immortal. God, on the other hand, on Good Friday did the opposite. God embraced the depth of human nothingness. God gave up what human beings strive for so that we may have what God gave up for our sake. At Easter, God takes us to the highest possibility of human possibilities – eternity itself.
3. Easter is the triumph of Love. The Christian magazine America, in its latest edition published an article by Vince Miller, one of our own parishioners, also a professor of theology at the University of Dayton. The main point of his article is that the events of Holy Week is about God’s refusal to let the world remain unsaved. In spite of the world’s very visible and real brokenness, amid complete loss, Vince claims, Christ held on so that everything could be saved. Easter, then, is the result of God holding on to us in love. Easter is the triumph of love. In fact, Easter is the triumph of everything human beings long for- love, forgiveness, goodness and life.
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples, shared a meal with them, spoke to them and lived with them. Today is not any different. Every Eucharist is a resurrection appearance. Jesus speaks to us, shares a meal with us the comes to be with us. Like his disciples, let us too become witnesses of his life. Beyond speculation, let our life be a witness to Christ. Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph