EASTER – THE GREATEST TRUTH

            We are so grateful that once again rejoicing and revelling in the greatest truth about God from which everything flows for us Christians: Jesus has risen! The other Christian truths no more than unfold what is implied by the Resurrection, expressing in different ways and articulating in various areas the one foundational confession: Jesus has gone through death into transcendent life, deathless life, and beautiful beyond telling; and blessed are those who are in union with him in life and in death. The Preface for the very old Second Eucharistic Prayer announces: “He put an end to death and revealed the Resurrection.” In doling so, Jesus revealed everything we need to know for our journey home to God. By Baptism and the Eucharist our very bodies are stamped and cleared by divine customs for one destination only. The Resurrection of Jesus guarantees that our bodies are pointing in one direction only: where Jesus is there’s where we shall be. Remember how he prayed to his Father: “Father, I pray that where I am they also may be.” Do you think the Father will refuse the prayer of the Son? Never!

            There is one yearly ceremony in which the Pope strikingly symbolises and even parallels St. Peter’s basic function as Easter witness. Each year millions of people see on television or hear on the radio the Pope’s Easter Sunday broadcast, when he proclaims anew the Resurrection. In 40 to 50 languages he announces to the city of Rome and to the world the glorious news that set Christianity going: “Christ is risen, Alleluia.”

 

            It was not faith that created the Resurrection but the Resurrection that created faith. The Resurrection of Jesus was revealed not simply by pointing to the empty tomb, but more especially by something that happened in the hearts of the disciples. The empty tomb is easy to describe. It is more difficult to describe what happened in the minds and hearts of the disciples. It was a real experience of solid presence giving rise to faith. The presence of the Risen Jesus gave rise to faith. It was not faith that produced a new sense of presence. Presence making faith, and faith making presence is a very important difference.

            Jesus’ disciples had to come to know and experience him in an entirely new way. This new knowing did something to them to make them change their mental atlas. It changed their heart and released it from its enslavement to death. Death was now relativised. Death is only a stage to the fullness of life in God. According to the Book of Revelation, Jesus “holds the keys of death and Sheol,” and he turns the key in the hearts of his faithful ones.

            So, who is Jesus? Jesus is the death-perfected Son of God, the source of the Easter proclamation. The empty tomb may be quite genuine, but it the heart of man that matters. The change of heart, that is. What matters is not the emptiness of the tomb, but the fullness of the heart. There’s where the Spirit moves and real change happens. What we are talking about is the presence of Jesus in a community shortly after his death on a cross. And this presence differs strikingly from just a mental memory of a dead leader.

            Let each one us ask himself/herself: Who is Jesus Christ to me? Or, rather ask Jesus himself: “Dear Jesus, tell me who you are that you make such a difference in my life.”

 

POEM:

Away with plaint,

Away with pain;

Let plaint and pain

Be turned to praise.

 

Let dark manoeuvres come to light,

Our Sun has risen from the night.

He tarries not in t’Upper Room,

But summons us away from gloom.

 

For gloom is no Christian calling,

The Paschal Mystery bears recalling.

 

Victor Jesus, to you we cry:

Our bodies raise to you on high

Where on the throne, which you have won

You reign supreme, our glorious Son!

Amen.