Easter Sunday (2019)
(Acts of
the Apostles 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9)
My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, on this glorious
day let us look at one verse in our Gospel passage which speaks volumes about
our Risen Lord. You heard that both John
and Peter ran to the tomb; John, being the younger, arrived first and:
Stooping down and looking in, saw
the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in.
Peter, coming next, characteristically went straight into
the empty tomb where:
He saw the linen cloths lying
there, and the handkerchief that had been around (Jesus’) head
not lying with the linen cloths but folded together in a place by itself.
Now, just recently, St. John told us about Jesus
miraculously bringing Lazarus back from the dead and out of the tomb:
Jesus cried with a loud voice,
"Lazarus, come forth!" And he
who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was
wrapped with a cloth. (11:43-44)
There, Lazarus came out of the tomb at Jesus’ command, but
he appeared:
bound hand and foot with
grave-clothes and his face wrapped with a cloth.
The fact that he was still bound in his grave clothes
signified that he was not totally free from death; he would needs face death
again. For the present time, however, Jesus
said to those around:
Loose him, and let him go.
As you can see there was a big difference between Lazarus’ being
raised and Jesus’ Resurrection, for when Jesus rose He left the linen cloths
behind:
Simon Peter saw the linen cloths
lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with
the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself.
Jesus rose totally from the bonds of death, never again
would He be subject to them. Lazarus, on
the other hand, had come out of the tomb “bound hand and foot with
grave-clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth”.
Let us consider further the linen cloths left behind in
Jesus’ otherwise empty tomb, and, in order to help us, let us recall how Jesus
later appeared to His disciples for the first time:
(That) same day at evening, being the
first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were
assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to
them, "Peace be with you." (John 20:19)
The doors were locked, and they remained locked, just as if
no one had entered. However, Jesus had been
able to enter the room, because closed -- even locked -- doors presented no
obstacle to His Risen Body. It was like that
with the burial cloths and the kerchief: though Jesus had risen, the burial clothes
remained as whole as they had been when wrapping His body, save that now they
enclosed, wrapped nothing; the head-cloth, however, the kerchief which had been
round His head, was now neatly folded and separate from the body cloths.
The message of the grave-clothes, as with that of the
closed and locked door in the upper room, was that the Risen Lord was now glorified. Lazarus had been called back to ordinary earthly
life; Jesus had risen to a new and glorious life not destructive of this creation
– witness the burial cloths that had wrapped His body -- but partaking of,
sharing in, that heavenly Kingdom which He had proclaimed to be close at hand.
And if we now pay yet closer attention to the kerchief we find
that it might have its own particular message for us. The kerchief, which was generally used to
cover, protect, one’s head and also for carrying money, was used in funerals to
wrap the head in such a way that the jaw bone was prevented from falling open,
thus preserving the dignity of the dead person.
The special mention of the kerchief being separately placed and neatly
folded can be understood and appreciated as a preservation of Jesus’ Messianic
dignity, a sign that Jesus’ proclamation of the Good News of salvation was
eternally valid and would never be silenced: the fruit of His labour and the
fullness of His teaching needing only to be wisely matured and faithfully handed
down through the ages by the Church He had established on the rock-witness of
Peter and the testimony of His chosen Apostles under the guidance of His own
final and supreme Gift, His most Holy Spirit.
It is now time, therefore, to turn our attention to the
supreme Christian mystery, that of the most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; three divine Persons, one God. How are we to think of this?
God the Father, to be Father, must have a Child -- His Son,
the Bible says. God the eternal Father,
therefore, eternally begets His only beloved Son, Who is like Him and equal to
Him in all respects, save that the Father is the Person Who begets whereas the
Son is the Person begotten. Thus, the
Father and His only-begotten Son are eternally One in the power of that
begetting -- that uniting power of their mutual Love -- which is the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is called God’s Gift,
for in and through Him the Father and the Son give themselves to each other in
total knowledge, understanding, appreciation, and love; and that is why, when
God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- determined that the Son should become man
in the Incarnation, He was sent -- as Son -- by the Father and conceived as a
human being in the Virgin’s womb by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, when His earthly life had run its
course, we are told in the letter to the Hebrews, of the Holy Spirit uniting
the Son to His Father in Jesus’ very act of dying:
Christ, through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, (to) cleanse your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God! (9:14)
Therefore, when the Son, after His Passion and Death, was
raised to new and eternally glorious life, the Scriptures tell us that both the
Father and the Spirit raised Him. We
read Paul preaching the Gospel to the Jews at Perga (Acts 13:32-33):
We declare to you glad tidings --
that promise which was made to the fathers.
God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up
Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: 'You are My Son, Today I have
begotten You.'
Yet when writing his letter to the Romans (1:1-4) the same
Paul also says:
Jesus Christ our Lord … was born
of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God
with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead.
St. Peter likewise mentions the Spirit:
Christ also suffered once for
sins … being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit. (1
Peter 3:18)
Through His Passion and Death, as the letter to the Hebrews
tells us, Jesus had been brought to perfect Sonship in His humanity:
Though He was a Son, yet He
learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been perfected,
He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. (5:8-9)
And now, the Risen Jesus, having being raised by the Father
and glorified in His human flesh by the Spirit -- perfect man and perfect God
-- has become the perfect channel through Whom we are able to receive the
divine Spirit into our poor, sinful, lives.
For Jesus, Son of the Father and Giver of God’s Gift, comes to us now in
the Eucharist so that we, who are of earthly flesh and blood might, by receiving
His glorious Flesh and Blood, be able to share in His Holy Spirit; whereupon,
that Spirit of holiness -- the bond of love and power uniting Father and Son --
begins to form us, in the likeness of Jesus for the Father.
As of old, the Ark of the Covenant had tabernacled God’s Law
for His chosen People, so, when He Who had been long-promised came, it was Mary
who housed and nourished Jesus in her womb.
Today Mother Church is the treasure-house where Jesus is ever-present to
His people by His Word and in the Holy Eucharist, and it is Mother Church who,
by the Gift of His Spirit and according to the model set for her by Mary, now
treasures and ponders in her
heart
all that Jesus
taught and did (Luke 2:19, 51). All who
live by faith in Mother Church’s proclamation of Jesus receive, through her,
the Gift of His Spirit, so that they might be formed into a true likeness of Our
Lord and Saviour, and as adopted sons and daughters of the heavenly Father.
People of God, wonderful things have been done for us this
Easter: through oneness with Jesus our Saviour and by the power of His most
Holy Spirit, our Comforter and Strength, we -- in all our daily endeavours to
walk along the way of Jesus -- are offered union with the Father as St. Paul
said:
You (have been) raised
with Christ, (so) seek those things which are above, where
Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
Your (real) life is hidden with Christ in God,
(and) when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him
in glory.
Let us therefore strengthen our faith, as, with deepened
understanding in our minds and renewed joy in our hearts, we proclaim our own
Easter hymn of praise and thanksgiving, saying: Glory be to the Father, and to
the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, in holy mother Church for ever and ever. Amen.
