Alleluia! Alleluia! Jesus our Lord is risen! Alleluia!
It is here! Today is Easter, the greatest Feast of our liturgical year. For those of you who took on the Iron Christian Challenge as a Lenten Exercise, and hung on to the end, you have arrived. Although the challenge is far from over.
We all come to Mass today full of hope and expectation. We sing joyous hymns of praise and thanksgiving because Christ our Lord is risen! The celebration of Easter brings us the joy of new life, the promise of victory over death, and the belief that we will be "united with [Christ Jesus] in the resurrection" (Romans 6:5). Alleluia!
However, the narratives we hear in our Easter gospels, Luke 24:1-12 for the Easter Vigil and John 20:1-9 for Easter Sunday present quite a different experience. On that first Easter morning, the faithful and not so faithful disciples were in shock. On Good Friday they watched as Jesus, their teacher and friend suffered a brutal and humiliating death. They saw their hopes and dreams for a glorious kingdom crushed. So, it is not surprising that when Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James tried to explain what they saw at the tomb, their announcement was met with skepticism. St. Luke tells us that the women's “story seemed like nonsense" and the disciples "did not believe them.” Only after Peter and another disciple (probably John) ran to the tomb and saw the empty tomb for themselves, did they begin to believe. And they were amazed! Alleluia!
We experience the joy of Easter because the disciples did come to believe and because they had the courage to preach, testify, and write about the joyous experience they had with their risen Lord. Jesus was visible to them and they “ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). We too can experience the living presence of the Risen Jesus; we eat and drink with him every time we participate in the Eucharist. We experience the living presence of the Risen Jesus in scripture, in sacrament, in our families, in our parish, and in our communities. For us, like the disciples, the resurrection of Christ is something we believe in and something we live. And like the disciples, we should feel compelled to share this great news of Easter joy with as many people as possible. We should join with Peter and all the disciples shouting out to all who will hear,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Jesus our Lord is risen! Alleluia!
Lord God, this is the day that you have made!
Raising Jesus from the dead,
and raising us with him,
you have fashioned for yourself a new people,
washed in the waters of baptism,
sealed with the gift of the Spirit,
and invited to the banquet of the Lamb!
Raising Jesus from the dead,
and raising us with him,
you have fashioned for yourself a new people,
washed in the waters of baptism,
sealed with the gift of the Spirit,
and invited to the banquet of the Lamb!
Continue in us the work of resurrection;
lift us above our faults,
to joy and unselfish love
as we serve you in one another.
lift us above our faults,
to joy and unselfish love
as we serve you in one another.
We ask this through your Son,
our Passover and our Peace,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
our Passover and our Peace,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
AMEN.
