Easter Day (10:15 am)
April 4, 2010
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Easter sermons could be simple, direct and, of
course, short and to the point. That would be nice. Of course, it would
presume that we knew exactly what we were talking about. And that the
meaning of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was itself simple, direct, and
to the point of easy comprehension. I’m afraid it is not.
None of us knows what really happened at daybreak that awesome
Sunday morning. There were no witnesses. No one saw what happened.
They only saw the result. There is no record of what Jesus himself
experienced or felt that day. But, in my imagination at least, he must have
been almost deliriously happy, peaceful, and grateful to his Father, the God of
The Eternal Promise. And the calm result of Jesus’ own experience is in the
word he speaks most often in every one of the post-resurrection stories: Peace!
Be at peace! Do not be afraid!
And yet, in the gospel versions, everyone trembles and is frightened. In
today’s gospel (John’s) we see Mary, Peter and John running back and forth
from the empty tomb. In Luke’s version read last night at the Great Vigil, we
see a stunned group of the women shaking in their amazement. They are all
shaking in grief. And soon they will be shaking in joy. But no one knows
exactly what has happened. It seems that resurrection can be a scary thing.
Odd, isn’t it? No one really knows. And yet this resurrection becomes
the foundation of the rest of their lives–and ours too. Its effects are still being
felt 2000 years later.
We do know that his tomb was found empty. And we know that few
seriously suggested that the body had been stolen. We know that Jesus did
not just become immortal somehow. He has a real body—a strange one, but a
real one. It’s actually his old body just somehow “glorified” Paul tells us. He
regularly “appears” to friends and disciples (St. Paul says even to about 500
others). But he sometimes walks through walls and locked doors. And his
disciples say to one another (in a slightly more contemporary phrasing):
“You couldn’t make this stuff up.” This is really strange—but wonderful!
And then the first strange effect is felt. These friends—almost all of
whom rejected Jesus or fled the scene when his end was coming—are now
feeling so strangely empowered. They become as fierce an army of followers
as anyone in human history has ever seen. They spread the story of who Jesus
is throughout the whole world—fearlessly and with unbelievable passion.
What they gradually come to realize is that this day, this resurrection
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day, is God’s great day. This is God’s doing. Their God, the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of Moses and Aaron. The God of their
ancestors has fulfilled the long-awaited Promise. Death has no final victory
over Jesus. And because of that, death will have no victory over anyone else
either. He is Lord and Messiah.
The first disciples came to realize that this extraordinary event is not to
be understood at all, but merely celebrated and cherished as God’s continuing
Promise to us all. Hence, they simply sang a lot. They sang Alleluia!
The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins speaks of Easter as a verb.
God is Eastering in all creation—beginning with Jesus of Nazareth! And
when God Easters, it is about bunnies, and Spring, and flowers and little
chicks and chocolate candies. It is about life itself. When God Easters, the
world changes—whether we choose to see it or not!
So enjoy the bunnies and the flowers and all the other signs of new life.
Enjoy! And let God continue to Easter in you! Alleluia!
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