Easter Sunday (C) 2022 (Acts 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9)
God raised (Jesus) on the third
day and granted that He be visible to us.
Those words of St. Peter are the culmination of an age-long
awareness and expectation in Israel, where the third day was of special
significance for Jewish piety. In the
book of Genesis, we are told that Abraham, in obedience to the voice of God,
was taking his only son Isaac to offer him in sacrifice to the Lord on the
mount which the Lord would show him. Sorrowing
father and innocent, unknowing son, were journeying on, together with some
servants, when:
On the third day Abraham lifted
his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men,
"Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and
we will come back to you."
(Genesis 22:4-5)
On that third day Abraham had observed Mount Moriah where
he believed his son had to be sacrificed to the Lord; in the event, however, it
would turn out to be the mount where the son was not only restored unharmed to
his father, but restored as the sign of God’s enduring promise of blessing for
Abraham and God’s Chosen People (22:16-17):
Because you have not withheld
your only son – blessing, I will bless you and multiply your descendants as the
stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore; and your descendants shall
possess the gate of their enemies.
Again, in the prophecy of Hosea (6:1-3) there is
consolation for sinful, suffering, Israel:
Come, and let us return to the
LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind
us up. After two days He will revive
us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His
sight. Let us know, let us pursue the
knowledge of the LORD. His going forth
is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the
latter and former rain to the earth.
You can understand, therefore, what Easter comfort and joy
the disciples experienced on recalling such texts after having found the empty
tomb and seen the Risen Lord! The
ultimate bearer of God’s promise, Jesus Whom they had known and loved, had risen
on the third day: death could not hold Him! Satan had been defeated, and his power over mankind
forever broken and shattered!! That is
why Peter could so confidently proclaim to Cornelius and his family whom, under
the command of the Holy Spirit, he was about to baptise (Acts 10:39-42):
We are witnesses of all things
which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, Whom they killed by
hanging on a tree. Him God raised up on
the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses
chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from
the dead. And He commanded us to preach
to the people, and to testify that it is He Who was ordained by God to be Judge
of the living and the dead.
Let us now turn to our reading from St. Paul and allow him
to guide our thoughts:
If then you were raised with
Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Think of what is above, not of what
is on earth. For you have died, and
your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Paul thus extends this wondrous event of Jesus’ rising from
the dead to include us:
You have died (with Christ), and
your life is hidden with Christ in God.
How can he say that we died with Christ? Because Christ – the very Son of God made flesh
-- died as Lord and Saviour of all mankind; though sinless, He died a sinner’s
death for our sake and on our behalf; and when He had died to sin, what chance
was there that anyone else could ever overcome the power and the horror of
death which is the sting in the tail of sin?
Indeed, when He died on Good Friday all our hopes seemed to die with
Him; and on Holy Saturday His disciples experienced only the hopelessness, helplessness,
and indeed the emptiness of our native, sinful, condition, and their own deep
personal loss.
But now, Peter
and Paul, together with all the apostles, bear witness that God has, in fact,
raised Jesus from the dead; and, since He is risen, Paul says, you – you, who believe in Him and in the God Who raised Him -- you too are risen with Him since you
have the opportunity of sharing in His new, risen, Life: because of your faith in Him
you are no longer subject to the frustrations and ultimate horror of earthly death,
no longer bound by sin in your native pride and self-solicitude:
“O Death, where is your
sting? O Hades, where is your
victory?" The sting of death is
sin, and the strength of sin is the Law.
But, thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-58)
But Paul also said that we too are seated with Christ at
the right hand of God. Now, we firmly
believe that Jesus, the Holy One of God, is seated at the right hand of the
Father, and we also believe that He continually intercedes for us; but how are we seated with Him at the right hand of
the Father?
The answer is that we are not, of course, physically seated
with Him now in heaven; nevertheless, heaven is where the vital powers of our
spiritual life originate and whither they are leading us. Jesus is physically, in His glorious humanity
-- our humanity received without sin from Mary and now glorified as Jesus’
Personal humanity in heaven -- at the right hand of the Father. Moreover, He is also physically with us -- in
a sacramental manner -- in the Eucharist, whereby He draws us up, into Himself
through the Spirit. Our heavenly food --
the driving force of supernatural life within us -- is the living Body of the
One seated at the right hand of the Father in glory; and the more we live by
that food, the more we live by His Gifted Spirit, the more He draws us closer
and more intimately into Himself. For
the sake of all mankind, He has taken our humanity into glory: none are barred from
sharing His glory by reason of their humanity.
However, we have a yet surer basis for hope than the mere
fact that our human nature is no longer barred from heaven: for each of us has
been called, drawn to Jesus -- personally and individually -- by the Father
Himself, as Jesus most explicitly said:
No one can come to Me unless the
Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)
And so, having obediently answered the Father’s call, we
have allowed ourselves to be drawn by the Father to Jesus, and we have come to believe
in Jesus as the Son-of-God- made-Man; and, having been baptised into Him as our
Lord and Saviour, we have now been endowed with, and justified by, His Gift of
the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul tells us:
Moreover, whom He predestined,
these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He
justified, these He also glorified. What
then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
(Rom. 8:30-31)
Today Jesus is risen and we are potentially risen with Him;
no, more than that, we who have faith in Him are already initially glorified in Him: for we
who receive the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord in true faith are now assured
that we are being actually guided by the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit of
God, towards heaven – as both our destiny and our home -- because our food of
life, the Eucharist is, sacramentally, the very same Body which is Jesus’ in
heaven; and thus God’s Gift of the Holy Spirit, bestowed on us through the
Eucharist, is now at work forming us ever more in Jesus’ likeness, so that we
-- as living members, in Spirit and Truth, of His Mystical Body on earth -- might
ultimately be able to share in the eternal glory which is His, in the Spirit,
before His Father in heaven.
For your life is hidden with
Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be
revealed with Him in glory.
The Father has received His Beloved Son back; and, living
in the Father’s heavenly presence, His Son is the bearer of an eternal promise,
that where He is, we -- who through faith and baptism are members of His
mystical Body -- may be:
Father, I desire that they also
whom You have given Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory
which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
(John 17:24)
Such is, indeed, the Lord Jesus’ prayer today in our
regard; and what hope of glory and fulfilment it holds out for us in the
future, what joy and peace it can bring us now, if we pray in unison with Jesus, and live in a way that makes such
a prayer credibly ours! Consequently, we
who entertain such hopes surely cannot allow ourselves to live a life of
worldly obsession, constantly searching and striving for what the world
promises, whilst largely forgetting our heavenly vocation and future. Even Jesus’ prayer that we ‘may be with Him
where He is’ can only bear effect in the lives of those who are open to, and in
tune with, such a prayer; that is, in the lives of those who seek communication and communion with
Him more seriously and lovingly than they search for earthly success, earthly rewards,
human sympathy and human companionship.
And so, let us never forget St. Paul’s admonition in today’s readings:
If you have been raised up with
Christ, keep seeking what is above where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Set your mind on the things above,
not on the things on earth.
Let us, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, follow such
advice in the spirit of today’s wonderful celebration, taking very much to
heart the words of the prophet Nehemiah:
Go, eat of the fat, drink of the
sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is
holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your
strength." (Nehemiah 8:10)
