Easter Sunday
March 31, 2013
10 AM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
Preaching about the resurrection is a dangerous undertaking. In fact,
just celebrating Easter can be a dangerous undertaking. It is too easy to
celebrate too little. And it is too difficult to grasp the full significance of the
experience.
Today is a celebration of what a rather famous German political
theologian, Johann Baptist Metz, called “the dangerous memory of the
passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” This is the dangerous
memory that we celebrate at every Eucharist.
Wondering why it’s such a dangerous memory? Because if we get it
right, the memory that is, it shatters the very structure of our worlds. It’s
that big a deal!
If you don’t believe me, let’s listen for a minute to what some other
much more highly erudite and learned theologians than I have had to say.
We’ll start with our brand new emeritus Pope, Benedict XVI. “Anyone
approaching the resurrection accounts in the belief that he knows what rising
from the dead means will inevitably misunderstand those accounts and will
then dismiss them as meaningless” (Jesus of Nazareth Part Two Holy
Week....p. 243).
Or how about noted scripture scholar and Bishop in the Anglican
Communion, N.T. Wright. He says even more when he writes: “I am
convinced that most people, including most practicing Christians, are
muddled and misguided on this topic (the resurrection of Jesus) and that this
muddle produces quite serious mistakes in our thinking, our praying, our
liturgies, our practice, and particularly our mission to the world” (Surprised
by Hope: Rethinking heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church).
Just one more.
A very wise scriptural preacher and one of the most
skilled scripture scholars of the last century, Fr. Raymond Brown, once said
“it is nearly impossible to talk for long about the resurrection without falling
into heresy.” Christian history is littered with heretical descriptions of
Easter. The very least we should know is what we’re not celebrating today.
Here is a brief guide to just a few of those heresies. We are not
celebrating that Jesus “spirit” or “soul” returned to God whence he came to
us in the first place. No, it is his body and spirit together that is raised–a
strange body to be sure, but his own, real body, which he must still have with
him somewhere.
Nor are we celebrating what has been called the Rip Van Winkle
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experience. Jesus did not just “fall asleep” for three days and then wake up.
No, he was actually, truly, completely dead! Dead as the proverbial door
nail! And yet he returned and lives. He did not seem to die; he did die.
And he didn’t just come back from death; he came through death and
destroyed it!
We could be here all morning if I continue with heresies. So what is
the take-away? There are three things we can say we’re celebrating. And
yet there is only really one. (Very Trinitarian, no?)
The disciples did find an empty tomb. He was gone. And no one
seriously can dispute that fact. (America magazine’s blog this week contains
a very scholarly and exhaustive piece on all the alternative explanations that
have been proved bankrupt over the centuries, e.g. the women went to the
wrong tomb and a real gardener just said “Jesus is not here.” and they ran
away. Or someone stole the body. Or he was only wounded and woke up.
None of them hold water.)
But the empty tomb does not in itself explain the next two experiences.
The disciples begin to see Jesus appearing to them and to lots of other people.
It can’t be a global hallucination; there are too many reports. They see him,
walk with him, eat with him, touch him. Whatever just happened, it is not
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just an event. It is an experience, and an experience that people are still
having. Easter is happening to them!
And the final piece, they become changed women and men. The
cowardly, frightened band evangelize the entire known world within a few
years. This is absurdly transforming. And it’s not just something that
happens, or happened, to Jesus. It is happening to them! God continues to
Easter in them.
And, my brothers and sisters, they are our ancestors in faith who hand
down to us that God is still Eastering today in us. The resurrection is not
only an event from long ago. It is an experience happening today. And
happening here at St. Ignatius–even if we don’t sometimes feel it or even
realize it. The problem for many of us is that this conviction is literally
impenetrable. It’s not just that we don’t understand how it can be. It that
we find it so hard to believe it’s possible.
I came across a bizarre but beautiful quote from a professed atheist and
profound scientist. His name is known to us all: Albert Einstein. He tried
to explain how though he was an atheist he remained a profoundly religious
man. He says this:
“To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which
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our dull faculties can comprehend....this knowledge, this feeling, is at the
center of true religiousness...and in this sense I belong in the ranks of the
devoutly religious” (Quoted in Living Philosophies: Reflections of Some
Eminent Men and Women of Our Time, 1999, p. 6).
As was often the case, Einstein got it right. To know the impenetrable
is ultimately real and represents a beauty and wisdom beyond imagining is
what Easter is about. We will never understand it until we allow ourselves to
experience it. My favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins captures the
resurrection’s significance for you and for me: “In a flash, at a trumpet
crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This Jack,
joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood,...immortal diamond, is immortal
diamond.”
Whatever the present or future holds for anyone of us–no matter what
else it feels like today or looks like–today let God Easter in you! He is risen
and alive! Alleluia.
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