HOMILY FOR EASTER SUNDAY MORNING, THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD, YEAR C (JOHN 20 1:9)

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Three non-church-goers died and met at the pearly gates of Heaven.  St. Peter told them that they could enter the gates if they could answer one simple question.

St. Peter asks the first man, “What is Easter?” The man replies, “Oh, that’s easy! It’s the holiday in November when everyone gets  together, eats turkey, and are thankful…”

“Wrong!” replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second man the same question, “What is Easter?”

The second man replies, “Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice tree, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of  Jesus.”

St. Peter looks at the second man, shakes his head in disgust, tells him he’s wrong, and then peers over his glasses at the third man and asks, “What is Easter?”

The third man smiles confidently and looks St. Peter in the eyes, “I know what Easter is.”

“Oh?” says St. Peter, incredulously.

“Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover.  Jesus and his disciples were eating at the  last supper and Jesus was later deceived and turned over to the Romans  by one of his disciples.  The Romans took him to be crucified and he was  stabbed in the side, made to wear a crown of thorns, and was hung on a  cross with nails through his hands.  He was buried in a nearby cave  which was sealed off by a large boulder.”

St. Peter smiles broadly with delight.

The third man continued, “Every year the boulder is moved aside so that Jesus can come out… and, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter.”

If Jesus had not risen and had not appeared to the apostles, there would be no Christianity today and none of these men would have even heard of Easter to get it wrong.  After Jesus’ death, all the hopes of the followers of Jesus were dashed.  Many of them went into hiding. This Messiah that they had decided Jesus was, died the worst death – that of a criminal – and achieved none of the expectations of a Savior. Jesus’ death may have saved the world, but we would have never heard about it.

This is a major event, very hard for any of us to comprehend. We cannot find in the Scriptures any consistent, single or unified explanation of the resurrection. What makes it believable, for me, is that these people who were in hiding, totally disappointed, totally lost, suddenly changed. Not just one of them, but all of them. They had an experience of the risen Lord, came out of hiding, and understood finally what Jesus was all about all along.

As a child, I used to think that Jesus rose and was exactly the same as he was before, only with holes in his hands and feet.  As an adult, I read more carefully the Gospels, and realize that Jesus raised was not the same as he was before. He could appear and disappear, he could change his looks so he wouldn’t be recognized, yet he could eat and be touched.  This is something new to grasp.  In every case, however, the followers of Jesus recognized him, believed in him and changed. We went from a group of frightened and scattered followers to a group of excited men and women, anxious to share their joy, their insights, their love. That is the miracle of Easter.

We need to not take this for granted.  Each time we hear this story we need to examine it and get excited about it just as the Apostles did.  Isn’t this why the church reminds us each year with this glorious feast, made all the more glorious by the contrasting days of Holy Week. We need to awaken to this glorious news of the Resurrection, be as excited as the women who saw the empty  tomb, be changed in the way Jesus’ followers were.

Last night we celebrated the Easter Vigil. Without being present at the vigil we miss out on some amazing stories and symbols that lead up to this great event.  In the opening prayer which is sung called The Exultet we sing about the people of Israel escaping from their Egyptian slavery and escaping the waters of the Red Sea,  We hear about the pillar of fire that guides our ancestors through the desert to the Promised Land. This moves into a description of the our being brought through the waters of baptism into the Promised land of our faith in Jesus. This is the night we are baptized, forgiven and given heaven. It is explained to us by St. Paul that because we share in his death, we also share in his resurrection. Thus, Jesus has conquered death and so we also can conquer death as well. A certain kindergarten teacher was telling her students the story of Jesus. In her class was a little boy who came from a non-Christian family. He was paying very close attention to the story because it was all new to him. As the teacher told how Jesus was condemned and nailed to the cross to die the boy's countenance fell and he murmured, "No! That's too bad!" The teacher then went on to tell how on the third day Jesus rose from the dead and came back to life. The boy's eyes lit up with delight and he exclaimed, "Totally awesome!" On Good Friday we heard the story of the suffering and death of Jesus. Like the little boy many of us felt like "No! That's too bad!" Today we hear the rest of the story and again with the little boy we can now exclaim "Yes! Totally awesome!" Today we can again sing "Halleluiah" that we have not sung all through Lent. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad (Psalm 118:24).

Why do we rejoice today? We rejoice because our faith in Christ has been vindicated, truth has triumphed over falsity, justice over injustice and tragedy has turned into comedy. It is like watching one of the episodes of Batman. First you see an innocent and helpless victim being attacked, robbed, kidnapped, assaulted and tortured by a wicked assailant. And we feel so bad seeing the triumph of the bad guy. Then, almost at the point where the victim has given up hope and is at the point of death, down from the skies comes Batman to the rescue. He battles and defeats the bad guy and rescues the innocent victim. And we feel happy inside at the triumph of justice.

The story of the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday is the story of the triumph of falsity over truth, of injustice over justice, of evil over goodness. Jesus was falsely charged of crimes he did not commit, and unjustly sentenced to a death he did not deserve. His good friend betrayed him, his trusted companions deserted him and his number one man denied him. The people he loved demanded his crucifixion and chose to have the bandit Barabbas released in his place. It is a story of betrayal and lies, dishonesty and meanness, unfaithfulness and wicked violence directed against an innocent and apparently helpless victim. All this comes to a head on Good Friday when we see Jesus scourged, mocked, led on the death march, nailed to the cross where he dies after a few hours and hastily buried in a tomb. If that were the end of the story that would be a bad story, a tragedy. But glory be to God it is not.

Death is not the end of the story. There is one more chapter. This is the most important chapter because, as the saying goes, they who laugh last laugh best. And in the last chapter of the story of Jesus we see him rise from the dead in all glory and majesty. He is vindicated. His enemies are shamed and confused. Jesus regains his eternal glory with the Father. He is the Lord who will prevail over all humankind, his enemies included. For us his embattled followers this is good news.

Today’s Gospel reading, you may have noted, is not only about the appearances of Jesus, unrecognized, but also about an empty tomb. I doubt that any of us will see the risen Jesus in this life.  We have to take our faith from what is unseen – that empty tomb. Faith in Jesus’ resurrection came originally from the empty tomb, the tears of Magdalene, her recognition of Jesus, and the gradual belief of the followers in what had happened. We too must take our faith from the empty tomb.  Let it be a symbol for us of the faith that we are all developing, our own gradual understanding like Peter and the Beloved disciple of what it all means, and a growing awareness that we too will conquer death and be with Jesus in the kingdom! Philip Brooks, an Episcopal Bishop,  said “The great Easter truth is not that we are to live newly after death – that is not the great thing – but that…we are to, and may, live nobly now because we are to live forever.”

 It is good news to know that truth is immortal. We can suppress Truth, accuse it of being a lie, condemn it, torture it, kill it, bury it in the grave but on the third day Truth will rise again. Remember this and do not give up on Truth even when everybody seems to give up on it. Do not give up on Truth; do not give up on Justice. Do not give up on doing what is right. True will always be true. Just will always be just. Right will always be right even when the world around us would have it otherwise. We must learn to believe in the sun even when it is not shining, knowing that by and by it will shine again. It is the end of the story that counts. That is why the church asks us today to rejoice and be glad. Even when we are going through very difficult times: through betrayal, unjust discrimination, lies, misrepresentations; even when the enemy seems to be winning the battle in our lives. Today Christ has won. And we know that in Christ we shall overcome. Halleluiah, Praise the Lord! Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday are interwoven because what we celebrate this morning is the mystery proclaimed at the Easter Vigil. It is important therefore to see the two moments as continuous. Easter Vigil recalls and re-enacts the mystery of God's salvation for us in the resurrection of Christ. Easter Sunday not only focuses our attention on recalling the resurrection of Jesus and its impact on the first disciples, but also on the meaning of this event for our own lives and for our faith. Easter Sunday highlights not only our faith in the resurrection, but we also joyfully proclaim and witness our faith in the Risen Lord among us.

Proclamation and witness are the two central themes running through today's readings. In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter speaks about his own experience and shares that experience with the listening crowds. Because of his experience of knowing with utter conviction that Jesus, who died on the Cross, is now alive, Peter is so filled with the joy of it, that he simply must share that same joy with others – so that it can be theirs, too. Similarly the experience of the resurrection by Paul leads him to advice that we keep focused on the risen Christ, since Christ is our life. For Paul, we know that his experience of the Risen Lord brought a total revolution in his life, and gave him a total new vision of things and especially the meaning of Jesus' life and message. In the Gospel, we have the experience of the empty tomb as a sign that Jesus is risen, He is not there.

This first day of the week is full of emotions and commotion. The discovery of the empty tomb by Mary of Magdala sets on motion, running back to tell Peter and John, that the Lord's body is not in the tomb. That experience may have been very disappointing, but it was also a clear message that Christ is risen as he had said. John, who writes the Gospel, tells us that he entered into the empty tomb, “he saw and he believed”. He believed that the Lord is risen indeed. That experience strengthened the faith of the disciples in the resurrection, and completely transformed their lives. Renewed in their conviction, they were moved to witness to the mystery of the resurrection. The message we take home on this Easter day is that we too like the disciples be moved to proclaim the resurrection of Christ in our lives to others without fear. May the risen Lord give us the grace and the courage to live as people deeply touched by our faith in the resurrection, and proclaim that “Christ in risen indeed, alleluia”.

We are an Easter religion.  We believe that despite all the evils surrounding us, all of the natural disasters that hit us, the poverty, hunger and discrimination of the world, that we will not give ourselves over to that power, but through faith in the resurrection, we believe that all this suffering will be vindicated, and that like Jesus, we will be raised up and renewed. We realize that risen life will come because of our self-sacrificing love of others, with Jesus as our prime example of that.

By  Rt.Rev.Kasomo Daniel The Bishop of The Society of St.Peter and Paul (SSPP)