Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
There is no question that what we are celebrating here today stands as the beating heart of the Christian faith – without Easter there IS no Christian faith. And it is this Feast, this celebration we have entered today and continue throughout the Great 50 Days of Easter, that sheds its joys throughout the rest of the Church Year. We have come today to the gushing fountain-head from which we slack our thirst each Lord’s Day as a “Little Easter.” This is the spring from which the entire joy of the Christian people wells up and overflows.
But what is that we are celebrating today? Nothing other than what the Angel told the women in today’s Gospel: “You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here in the Tomb! See the place where they laid him, but go quickly and tell His disciples and Peter that He goes before You to Galilee. There you will see Him just as He told you!”
That was the first Easter sermon. Short and sweet, but dripping with life eternal and the Church has savored those words ever since! Let’s ponder them.
First, that the Crucified One has been raised and is no longer in the place of death. When others were raised from the dead, they were raised in bodies that fell subject to death again. But when the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, His very flesh was made incorruptible. It is not just that His body came back to life as it was before. No! Far from it. His body, in being raised, was changed, was glorified, was raised imperishable. And it is the Christian faith that Christ is raised as the “first-fruits.” That is, the raising of His Body was only the beginning of the harvest! He will also raise all His baptized people in imperishable bodies like His own! “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised imperishable and we shall be changed!”
This was the joy that exploded in the days of the Apostles and the Early Church. They knew that the Crucified One by answering for the sin of the world had truly destroyed death itself – blown it up from the inside. Not for Himself alone, but for all people. And that this over-throw of death is His gift of love to all who trust His death’s forgiving power and are baptized in His name.
Second, the Angel invites the women to “see where they laid Him.” That is, the Angel invites them to look into the tomb and ponder what the absence of Christ’s body means! For it is the promise that our own tombs, our graves, are just temporary bedrooms, places where our bodies lie down and rest and sleep a bit, until that glorious day foretold by Job when the Redeemer stands at the Last upon the earth and wakens the dead and then we shall see with our own eyes Him whom we have yearned and longed to see, and whom we have believed.
Third, the Angel told them: “Go quickly and tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee and there you will see Him.” That is the Angel sent the Marys and Salome out on a mission of mercy. And that mission was to announce the resurrection of Christ to those who were grieving – and not only over Christ’s death, and the shattering of all their hopes and dreams, but most of all – with the mention of St. Peter – to those who were grieving over their own failures and sins.
“Even if all deny you, yet will I not!” How bold St. Peter had been! But look how he failed his Lord. Three times cowed by the likes of little servant girl, he had sworn that he did not even know his Lord.
And you? Have you failed your Lord? Have you denied Him by your words and actions? Have you found yourself with tears in your eyes for your own failure and sin?
Good news! Today He sends His messenger to call you to Himself! He announces to you – to you who have failed and denied your Lord – that the Lord Himself longs to meet you to forgive, welcome and restore you!
But where? “In Galilee as He told you.” A reminder for Peter to head to the Galilean hills and there to meet Jesus. But for you and me? He has appointed another meeting place. Not the Sea of Tiberius, but the Table of the Lord.
Here He comes to you today! The Risen One! The One who was hanged on Golgotha’s tree and there was made to be your sin! The One who fully entered the loneliness that IS sin to bring forgiveness to sinners! The One who burst the grave on this joyous day in the Body that is the promise of your own resurrection. He calls you to come to Him and to receive from His hands the very Body and Blood that ARE your forgiveness before the Father! That ARE the guarantee of the resurrection of your body! That ARE the gift of eternal life!
At least at first we know that the Marys and Salome went out and said nothing to anyone because they were trembling with fear and amazement. But later the amazement won out and drove away the fear. From the other Gospels we know that they spoke, and so the Church has gone on speaking, carrying into the world the very same message, the fountain of eternal joy. Today it is ours to hold in our hearts, to bear to each other and to announce to all the world. The words that stand as the very beating heart of the Christian faith: Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
