Easter Day, 2007

Easter Day 2007 April 8
Happy Easter!

What makes it “happy” for you? For me, as a child, I liked the solid, milk chocolate bunny; the colored eggs—actually, the hard-boiled egg itself; and the ravioli—my grandmother in Flatbush made them on Holy Saturday and set them out on every available surface: kitchen tables, card tables, even atop beds fitted with layers of crisp white linens. Also, at Easter, there was Father Benante. He taught us 4th, 5th and 6th graders how to read and sing Gregorian chant. And boy did we sing at that midnight Easter Vigil. I remember all the surprised heads turning to look up at us in the choir loft. I can still feel the unusual harmonic terrain, the climbing up on to and down off of those exotic boxy musical notes.
Today, a Happy Easter still includes music—this choir, your voices. And food continues to be a centerpiece—including the aromas that will greet me back at the house as we pack it all up for the trip to my youngest sister’s home. She’s inherited my Italian grandmother’s mantle and has taken over for our mother who cannot coordinate the feast any longer. Thank God, Mom can still enjoy it—a good and Happy Easter Day.

Things change; of course: my two children have grown in a flash—one has traded in the egg hunt for automobile shopping. The other likes the color green but not jellybean; rather she’s angling for the green iPod nano.
What does all of this say about Easter? Well, I am sure each of you could likewise talk about the people, places and things—then and now—that stand out and express celebration, joy and love: the traditions of family and friends; the treasured ingredients and familiar rituals that enrich Easter, or Christmas (or any other festive time of the year for that matter). But what is Easter; what are we being festive about?

What do the Gospels tell us about Easter morning? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all focus on the resurrection of Jesus; or, I should say, they try to. Yet, none of them really say very much about resurrection at all. True, as in Saint Luke’s account heard today, there is mention of the inexplicable rolling away of the stone from the tomb and the surprising question from those two unknown men, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” And the intimation of the miraculous: “Remember he told you he would be crucified and on the third day rise.” But this isn’t resurrection; it’s talking round about resurrection that functions like spiritual sonar.

The Easter Morning Gospels are soundings—echoes that develop a faint and somewhat murky picture, as in the Gospel according to Mark, when the messenger announces about Jesus: “He has risen; he is not here”. That sounding, about Jesus’ bodily absence from the tomb, is supposed to bounce back to us as picture-proof of his resurrection. But it doesn’t really work that way, does it? People look for proof that declares something to be either on or off, here and real or gone and over. However, the empty tomb, for those first witnesses, generated the same feeling as it does for women and men today: uncertainty; uneasiness—anxiety about life and doubts when it comes to faith.

So, putting aside, just for a few moments, the festive traditions that add definition to the Easter picture, let’s honestly ask just what is this Jesus/Resurrection thing and how does it (or does it even) relate to my life? Imagine it: those who were bringing the spices to the tomb had known a living Jesus who taught and healed, who loved well and died miserably. Thus, they experienced a disconnect. There they were, trying to make peace with a dead body and a memory; and here we are today, with our own version of the disconnect, as we attempt to understand a Jesus who we first meet through pages of a book, albeit a wonderful book. How far are we going to go in believing what we read? How far were they going to go in believing what they were being told?

So you see, 1st century and 21st century followers both feel the separation, the gap, between the incomparable teacher Jesus who preaches The Beatitudes and the improbable Resurrected Christ who is not here in the ways that we usually expect someone who is here to be here. Those Christians then and we Christians now are faced with the identical challenge. How does one go from the Jesus of History to the Christ of Faith?
How? Seek God and God will find you. Be open to God and God will open doors. Close doors and God will still endure in steadfast love asking you to open up. God will not go away. And isn’t that quite possibly the beginning of opening up to the Resurrection Life: considering that not even death keeps Jesus Christ away. Nor is it our faith that brings Jesus Christ here. Christ is already here. What our faith does is help us to recognize this reality, this Real Presence—The Real Presence that makes a difference in our lives.
The Easter Morning Gospel is not an explication of what Resurrection is. Rather, the Good News proclaimed this day is an invitation into Christ’s Resurrection Life. That’s why this candle is burning.

For the next fifty days (that’s two months of Sundays) the Church leaves the lights on for an exploration into Resurrection. I assure you, if you participate in the majority of those upcoming Sunday liturgies, paying close attention to the Gospel each week, you’ll arrive at Pentecost with a lot more to go on regarding what Resurrection means for us.
For now, on this Easter Day, suffice it to say that Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a body; that would be fantasy. Resurrection is not the rejuvenation of a life; that too often is nostalgia. Neither is Resurrection about renewal as in the returning blossoms of springtime. Rather, Resurrection is the unexpected, unfathomable act of love that is beyond love as we know or conceive of it because it is the source love that conceives each one of us.

The Resurrection might jar us before it amazes us; the Risen Lord could well confound you before he comforts you. But that’s because, in our own lives, we have to go back to the beginning of the Easter Morning Gospel. Yes, in us, the stone of “How could this be?” needs to be rolled away before we can praise God with Alleluia. Then, when you look at this world in the light of Resurrection, everything we thought about Creation is reconfigured, transfigured. For in Christ there is, we are, New Creation.
ALLELUIA. ALLELUIA.