EASTER SUNDAY
16 APRIL 2017
At the last Mass on Christmas Day, we heard
the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John.
He announced that Jesus Christ, present at the creation of the world,
took on human flesh and dwells among us. At this Mass on Easter Sunday, we hear
the end of the Gospel of Saint John. This
same Jesus Christ, who suffered a cruel and humiliating death on a cross, has
been raised from the dead.
When Mary of Magdala arrives at the
tomb, the darkness is much more than the lack of physical darkness. She comes with the terrible inner darkness of
profound grief. The one who had taught
her, the one who had driven seven demons from her, the one who had shown so
much kindness to her and to so many others had been brutally executed. She is shocked to find the stone rolled away
and the tomb. In the darkness of her
grief, she runs to tell Peter and the Beloved Disciple that she has found an
empty tomb. When they arrive at the
tomb, Peter cannot make sense of it.
But, the Beloved Disciple notices some important details. No one has stolen the body, because the
burial cloths remain in the tomb. When
he sees the cloth that had covered the head of Jesus, he thinks about the veil
that Moses wore when he had encountered God on Mount Sinai. His face shone so brilliantly that people
could not look at it. The Beloved
Disciple connects that cloth with the glory which Jesus certainly now shares,
and he believes.
John says that they still do not
understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. It is only when they encounter the risen Lord
that they begin to believe. It will take
time. Because the Lord has been
transformed through the resurrection, they do not recognize him. Mary thinks that he is the gardener. Peter, the Beloved Disciple, and the rest of
the disciples are afraid when he breaks through the locked doors of their
grief. Once they recognize him, they
also hear his words of forgiveness for running away from him in his hour of
need. Changed by their encounter with
the risen Christ, they boldly proclaim his resurrection to everyone whom they
encounter.
That is certainly true of
Peter. He gives a great homily in the
house of the gentile convert Cornelius.
He had baptized him and welcomed him into a new community of Jews and
Gentiles. He is no longer the fearful Peter
who denies knowing Jesus three times before the cock crowed on the night of
Jesus’ betrayal. He no longer clings to
the sins of his past. He boldly
proclaims the person of Jesus Christ and attests that everyone who believes in
him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name. He knows this forgiveness, because he himself
received it from the risen Christ.
We do not encounter the risen Lord as
those first witnesses did. But the risen
Lord is just as present to us through the sacramental life of the Church.
Through our celebration of the Sacred Paschal Triduum, we have not been
reenacting the historical events of the Lord’s passion and death. In our Liturgical remembering, the mystery of
these events has been made present to us.
But, it takes time for us to assimilate the Mystery of the Resurrection
and apply it to our lives. That is why
we celebrate Easter every year. At this Easter
Mass, we renew our Baptismal promises and recommit ourselves to living
them. The risen Lord speaks to us in his
Word. He feeds us with his Body and
Blood. He gives us another Easter to as
a gift to deepen our faith and reflect on our encounters with him. He sends us out of this church to proclaim to
all we meet that sin and death are not the end.
We celebrate the Victory of the Lamb, who dies no more.
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