Fr. JC Maximilian

EASTER SUNDAY

“The Lord has indeed risen, alleluia. Glory and kingship be his for ever and ever” (Entrance Antiphon for Easter).

Jesus, the crucified one, has now been raised from the dead. Utter defeat has been transformed into irreversible victory. Satan, and all the powers of evil, did all they could do to breakdown the courage and fidelity of God’s anointed Savior. Satan exhausted his arsenal of hate, injustice, humiliation and pain, and had his way with the Messiah of the world. Despite it all, God’s anointed came out victorious – Christ Jesus Victor!

Many people outside the Christian faith often think that Christmas is the most important of the Christian holidays. Yet we, the Faithful, know that Easter is the holiest of solemnities. The glorious resurrection of Christ Jesus is the key for understanding His entire life, and is the foundation of our Faith. Without the Resurrection, all the other aspects of Jesus’ life would be without meaning. Jesus would have just been recorded in history as a wise teacher, with no more authority over our lives than Socrates or Confucius or the Buddha or Mohammad, or even Dr. Phil. Good Friday, the Crucifixion, would have been the last act of Jesus’ life, hardly “Good News,” just another nice guy, just another dreamer whose dreams were squelched by the harsh reality of real life.

But Jesus did rise from the dead, and His victory over evil, sin, falsehood, injustice, suffering and even death is total and irreversible. As St. Paul writes, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain . . . . You are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15: 14, 17).

It is interesting, however, that this, the most central event in our Christian Faith – the Resurrection – is not described in any of the Gospels. We have careful accounts of so many of Jesus’ miracles, including His raising Lazarus from the dead, yet we have no description of the Resurrection itself. All we have is the account of the empty tomb. Even Mary Magdalene is uncertain as to what the empty tomb really means. She runs to the Apostles and says, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” St. Peter, and the other disciple, run to see the empty tomb. Clearly this was not the work of grave robbers, because the expensive burial linens are still there. The Gospel says they “saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scriptures that he had to rise from the dead.” They had faith and hope.

When I was in Rome, the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva was near where I was staying, so I stopped there often to pray. In the church is a small, little known marble sculpture of the resurrected Christ by Michelangelo. The figure of Christ is gloriously sculptured. He is young, muscular, confident and energetic. He stands firm, but not stiff. The risen Lord stands alone, the only other figure in the sculpture is His cross. He holds it in His arm; it is rather puny in size, certainly too small to have been used to crucify Him. It is just a flimsy little wooden cross, and he holds it as easily as we would hold a bouquet of flowers. And that is the whole point that Michelangelo is trying to convey in this work of art. The life-giving power of the Risen Lord has overwhelmed the deathly power of the cross. What Easter Sunday does for us is it makes the light of hope shine so brightly in our lives that it shrinks our crosses down to size. We can bear them now, and with joy, because we know that they are leading us towards the glorious victory of the Resurrection. Just like the disciples standing in the empty tomb, the Resurrection gives us our hope, even if we do not fully understand it.

Today we should relish this joy of Easter, thanking God for letting us share in this victory which gives us hope. However, we should not let it stop there. We should not just enjoy Easter, we should allow the reality of the Resurrection to transform our lives. Christ’s Resurrection is the power of eternal life at work in us. We should do something to plug into that power. All of us made an effort to live Lent in a special way – maybe we gave something up, or we committed to saying some extra prayers. Priests are often amazed at how many more people can find the time to make it to daily Mass during Lent, but not during the rest of the year. Holy Mother Church in her wisdom gives us six weeks of Lent and eight weeks of Easter.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul encourages us to “think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” Maybe we should make an Easter resolution that will help us do just that, that will help us keep in mind the eternal life in Christ that is waiting for us if we stay faithful to Him. It might be making a commitment to attend daily Mass, or to spend time each day reading the Scriptures. Maybe we could decide to join one of the Bible Studies that we offer here in the parish, or the Communion and Liberation School of Community, or one of the other prayer groups. Maybe we can commit to keeping the Lord’s day more faithfully, not only by participating in Sunday Mass but also planning special, uplifting activities to do as a family. If we ask the Holy Spirit to give us some ideas, He will not be stingy. We just need to decide to let Easter make a difference in our lives, the way it should.

I leave you with these words of Pope Benedict XVI, “All this makes clear what Easter does mean: God has acted. History does not go on aimlessly. Justice, love, truth – these are realities, genuine reality. God loves us; he comes to meet us. The more we go along his path and live in his way, the less we need to fear justice and truth, the more our hearts will be full of Easter joy. Easter is not only a story to be told: it is a signpost on life’s way. It is not an account of a miracle that happened a very long time ago: it is the breakthrough which has determined the meaning of all history. If we grasp this, we too, today can utter the Easter greeting with undiminished joy: Christ is risen; yes, he is risen indeed!” (Joseph Ratzinger, Seek That Which Is Above, 1986, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, pp. 54-56).