Homily for April 15, 2nd Easter (B), St Ignatius Church.
Fr. Joseph T. Nolan
It is still Easter, yes, but I speak to you as a skeptic – for your sake. The
apostle Thomas was hard to convince – remember? And in Matthew’s
account of the Ascension, it says that some of them still doubted. And why
not? Are not the gospel accounts of meeting the risen Christ---in the garden,
in the upper room, on the highway, by the shore at Tiberias, on a
mountain in Galilee, and more—even appearing to more than 500 at one
time, according to the earliest testimony, which comes from Paul -- are
they not contradictory in details of time and place? Yes, they are.
But in answer I refer you to two scholars who give very good reasons for
believing the evangelists
The first is Hans Kueng, in his monumental
work, On Being a Christian. In my theology classes the students had to
learn all his arguments -- they are convincing. There is not time to give
them now but if you really are a skeptic, I could send them by email (the
way to go!) The second scholar I favor is N.T. Wright; his book, Surprised
by Hope, makes a great and reasoned case for believing the gospel accounts.
He reminds us that the Christian faith got going, so to speak, with this fact:
he is risen, he is real. We wouldn’t be in church right now if the
resurrection had not happened. And here is something that surprises many:
the resurrection was so foundational that it was never defined by one of the
great councils of the church (which hammered away for years over other
doctrines about Christ).
There are arguments from reason to believe in resurrection – one that
appealed to Descartes, the philosopher, was the fact that we have passed
from a state of non-being to being – here we are – and this is a greater
transition than to change the mode of being. Pause on that a moment:
once there was nothing – “no thing” – and then there was something –
creation. And finally some ONE. Persons. You and me. If the greater
transition has happened, we may expect the lesser.
Another argument is our endless wish to take in more of “what is there” –
reality. John Updike said that we can’t imagine the world going on without
us! He added that our reluctance to leave this world is a tribute to the
Creator who made it so desirable. We do want more of it – love, beauty,
joy, happiness – and one is reminded of Augustine’s famous statement that
“our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”
Still another approach is to feel deeply that life is unfair. It is so often
interrupted by accident, illness, war, and early death that, in a very real
sense, “God owes us.” Yes. The payment is what Jesus called a new
creation.
But the greatest argument from reason to believe in resurrection is our
experience of love. It led a fine thinker, Gabriel Marcel, to declare that to
love someone is to say that “thou, at least thou, shalt not die.” All poets
know that, and poetry is a way to higher truth. Death is love’s greatest
wound but the very love that has bound us to each other is a sign that God’s
gift of life is not ended – it would be monstrous of a loving God to make us
and then abandon us, to let death be destruction And nowhere is this better
put in the Bible than in the words of the Song of Songs where love is called
a flame of Yahweh that many waters cannot extinguish.
No – not even the floodtides of death.
We try to believe all this but feel bound by our very mortal flesh. Do you
know what Gerard Manly Hopkins called us in one of his poems? A joke.
A jack. A piece of pottage, patch, poor matchwood. Hardly images of
great dignity! But then he declared what we really are: immortal diamond.
Diamonds are very precious – so are we.
Diamonds are forged from the earth and fire – so are we.
Diamonds last a long time – and some of us live even 90 or 100 years.
But immortal? We are reminded of our mortality everyday.
Wait - the poet is not done yet. He declares of every person – you and me –
“I am what Christ is.”
How can this be possible?
Two answers: we are what Christ is
with every act of love.
And the moment we die.
So let faith and love deliver us from doubt and fear. We should enjoy life.
And there is more.
.