Homily for Easter Sunday
April 11, 2004
My Dear Friends in Christ,
We gather this morning to celebrate our resurrection to new life. We sing for the joy that the Risen life brings to our lives.
It is not time for a long homily, especially if you have been attending our Holy Week Services throughout the week. The celebration of Easter itself, is compact enough and the signs and symbols of resurrection speak for themselves: Easter Candle and Easter Lilies. But allow me to reflect briefly on our three readings today so that we can clearly grasp and understand a bit better what it is that we celebrate.
Although our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles serves as a powerful recapitulation of Jesus’ ministry, its final verse also provides a definition of the meaning of the resurrection. Namely, Peter and the Apostles found the resurrection to be an experience of forgiveness and reconciliation. Peter and the other followers of Jesus - all but a few of whom had abandoned Jesus in his final hours - experienced the resurrection as healing, reconciliation and wholeness restored. Peter, then urges his listeners to faith so that they might also experience resurrection in their lives. Today, I pray that your faith in the resurrection may be as strong as theirs so that you can leave here this morning, feeling some of the healing and forgiveness the risen life promises. Just think of that one area or that one relationship which needs healing in your life and allow it to be transformed into resurrected life.
The second reading, a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians reminds us to delight in the fullness and the newness of life that abides in us. Fear and alienation should be things of the past. Are you experiencing fear in your own life just now? As believers in the resurrected Christ, we should not allow anxiety, dread and apprehension to continue to afflict or concern us. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s way of restoring our humanity to us. Perhaps that is why today’s gospel is far more concerned with what happened to Jesus’ followers, than it is in detailing what happened to Jesus. The good news of the resurrection is much more than a happy ending to a violent story. It is the beginning of a whole new way of life and living. Like the disciple in the gospel, all we need to do to share in this life is to believe.
Finally, in reflecting on the gospel passage from St. John, it may seem somewhat amazing to us, upon finding the empty tomb, Jesus’ followers did not immediately understand what had happened, did not instantaneously understand the meaning of resurrection, and thus begin to celebrate it straight away. However, if we are honest, we will have to admit that we too share in the disciples’ misunderstanding that and hesitation to celebrate.
Even after a successful Lent, we may not feel like resurrected persons. Or we may find ourselves unable to see any resurrection and new life around us: In our families, in our neighborhoods or in our parish communities. If such is the case, perhaps we need to open our eyes and pay closer attention.
Easter proclaims a message of unquenchable hope, good news that resounds like church bells over all cries of sorrow and the din of strife. Easter summons us to pay attention and to celebrate all the daily resurrections that are taking place within and around us: A child reconciled with a parent; a homeless person who at long last finds a home; the hungry who are fed; the laughter amid suffering; the courage evident in the midst of fear; the promises kept; the hearts mended. These may sound simple, but they are resurrection experiences, experiences of new and transformed life.
During this Easter week, take the time to think of one way you share in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Take time to pray over a daily death and resurrection of your own. Take time to offer praise to someone who has had a significant change in his or her own way of living. And finally, pause to begin to enjoy the blossoming of spring time. Let this Easter story bring all of us to a deeper insight that Jesus is present among us and lives as the Risen Christ, Alleluia!