EASTER SUNDAY 2013
CLOSEST TO OUR HEARTS!
A BLESSED EASTER!
A great teacher of the faith said
something intriguing about Easter.
He said that Easter is the feast most understandably human, the feast
closest to our human experience, the feast most connected to our daily lives.
How true is that? We all know that Easter is a high
mystery, perhaps the highest mystery of all. People in Jesus’ time did not
understand it. Even his disciples
had difficulty believing it. And
today, many still deny that it ever happened.
How can someone dead live again? Maybe in the heart, in the memory, in
his legacy but his body is certainly rotting down under the ground. That is why
news of the Resurrection only brought a disbelieving shake of the head.
In faith we accept the Easter
event. Jesus rose from the dead,
for that is what the Father promised and fulfilled in his life. God who worked
out the impossible in the Incarnation, now works out another impossible thing
in the Resurrection. God in Jesus
assures us that Easter is possible!
A place of decay can become a nursery for life!
But how is this feast most human,
most accessible, most near to our day to day lives?
First, we look at who we
are. We are creatures of the
earth. On this earth, we are born,
we struggle, we live, we suffer, we rejoice, we die and we return finally, to
the ground. We cannot escape the destiny of life on earth, full of
possibilities but also full of limitations.
Creatures of the earth, we rebel
at the thought of dying. We abhor the onslaught of pain, sadness, old age,
sickness and death. We are bound
to die one day, just as one day we joined the rhythm of life. And yet, we refuse to die. No one, in his right mind, dreams of
dying.
Can we bargain with the
earth? Can we live its sweet
promises and do away with the bitter consequences? Can we choose to live only
the bright prospects and to delete those that give rise to our fears? It seems
impossible, for we are destined already. We are bound to this earth.
And yet, God says to us today,
“Yes!”
It is possible to not to die. It
is possible not to suffer anymore.
It is possible to conquer all our anxieties and sorrows. It is possible to surmount the destiny
of being creatures chained to this earth.
It is possible because of the
Resurrection, the Easter joy!
Jesus broke free from the linen
bands that held him, from the dark, filthy tomb that encased him, from the
gloom of destruction and oblivion.
Jesus rose from the dead to offer something else to the world – not
death, but life eternal, life without end, life to the full!
And yet, Jesus did not despise
the earth when he rose from the dead.
He did not promise that new life would happen only in the clouds above,
in the imaginary world outside of daily experience. He conquered the earth and its limits not by destroying them
but by transforming them.
We are creatures of the
earth. We cannot escape this earth
but we can, with Jesus, transform our lives on earth.
Lent prepared us for this. As we confessed our sins, as we
reflected on our past, as we planned our future with God, as we promised to do
better and walk more faithfully with the Lord, we are already prepared for
victory.
Yes, Easter is closest to our
hearts because it answers our darkest fear of death and destruction. Life need not end in the dark
tomb. Life continues in spite of
it, as long as there is transformation.
We are creatures of this earth.
But we are not slaves anymore. We
are masters of a renewed life given to us by the One who came out of the tomb
filled with unending life.
A Blessed Easter everyone!
