Easter Sunday (Fr. Vinner)
THE LIGHT OF CHRIST
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The Easter Vigil is an experience of moving from darkness into light. I want to say something about darkness and light, and then something much more about the Light of Christ that knows no darkness. Easter is the greatest and the most important feast in the Church for three reasons:
1) The Resurrection of Christ is the basis of our Christian Faith. It is the greatest of the miracles, for it proves that Jesus is God. That is why St. Paul writes: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain; and your Faith is in vain” (I Cor 15:14). “Jesus is Lord, he is risen” (Rom 10:9), was the central theme of the kerygma (or “preaching”), of the Apostles because Jesus prophesied his Resurrection as a sign of his Divinity: “Tear down this temple and in three days I will build it again” (Jn 2:19). The founder of no other religion has an empty tomb as Jesus has. In addition, neither Jews nor the Romans could disprove Jesus’ Resurrection by presenting the dead body of Jesus. The Apostles and the early Christians were absolutely sure that Jesus had risen from the dead. They would not have faced martyrdom for a dead leader lying in the tomb. The sheer existence of a thriving, empire-conquering early-Christian Church, bravely facing and surviving three centuries of persecution, supports the truth of Christ’s Resurrection.
2) Easter is the guarantee of our own resurrection. Jesus assured Martha at the tomb of Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will live even though he dies…” (Jn 11:25-26).
3) Easter is a feast which gives us hope and encouragement in this world of pain, sorrows and tears. It reminds us that life is worth living. It is our belief in the Real Presence of the Risen Jesus in our souls, in His Church, in the Blessed Sacrament and in Heaven that gives meaning to our personal as well as our communal prayer and gives us strength to fight against temptations and freedom from unnecessary worries and fears.
I wonder about the Israelites who had crossed the Reed Sea at the Exodus, in darkness, I wonder how they felt the next morning when the sun rose on their camp. Their eyes opened to the light of freedom. I wonder if they shielded their eyes because it was too strong for them… Ordinary sunlight was a figure of so much more….I wonder how they felt when Moses came down from the mountain after being with God, with his face shining with the glory of God. Their eyes were too weak for that light. They got Moses to put a veil over the light, until they learnt to live in the light……
I wonder how a later generation of Jews woke up for the first morning in Jerusalem after the return from exile in Babylon. Did they feel the gleaming rays of the sun on the walls of the holy city, and did they know, in that sunlight, there would be exile no more? Did they sense there was more than sunlight to come….
I wonder how Saul of Tarsus looked into the Light when Jesus, risen, appeared to him on the Damascus Road. I wonder did he feel a new Light rising inside him as it flooded him… It was no figure this time. He was looking at the resurrection itself. …
I wonder how we feel tonight, here. We are here in the mystery of his rising, we are here in the rising of the Light. There are no intermediaries between us and him. The light he shines into us will never darken.
I wonder how it will be, when we die, when we lose sight of the light we have known, and we lose sight of the darkness we have known. When we begin to see something else. When we are in the new LIGHT… Where there is Light, there is Life. Where there is Life, there is World. Where there is World, there is Beginning, all the time.. And because of the Light, it is all NEW.
Let us live the lives of Resurrection people: Easter gives us the joyful message that we are a “Resurrection people.” This means that we are not supposed to lie buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits, dangerous addictions, despair, discouragement or doubts. Instead, we are expected to live a joyful and peaceful life, constantly experiencing the living presence of the Risen Lord Who loves us in all the events of our lives and amid the boredom, suffering, pain and tensions of our day-to-day life. We need to live new, disciplined lives in the Risen Jesus. Our awareness of the all-pervading presence and love of the Risen Lord in and around us and the strong conviction of our own resurrection help us to control our thoughts, desires, words and behavior. This salutary awareness inspires us to honor our bodies, keeping them holy, pure and free from evil habits and addictions. Our conviction that the loving presence of the Risen Lord dwells in our neighbors and in all those we encounter should encourage us to respect them and to render them loving, humble and selfless service.
WISHING YOU ALL HAPPY EASTER AND MAY THE RISEN CHRIST BLESS YOU.
FR. S.Vinner HGN