Reflection
Easter Sunday
Happy Easter to all of you.
Preparing an Easter morning reflection for a parish congregation has always been a challenge to me because the church gives us multiple Gospel readings for this great solemnity. The people come dressed up in their best Easter clothes to celebrate this great day. While the music usually centers on the theme, “Alleluia, Jesus is risen,” the Gospels for both the Easter Vigil and Easter mornings don’t tell that story. They all tell a variety of stories of an empty tomb. The theme is subtle and slightly confusing. Additionally, the apostles’ inability to interpret what an empty tomb means leaves them confused. While the church gives us stories on the empty tomb on Easter Sunday, it will focus on the appearance stories on the next two Sundays.
So, the disciples are confused. Does resurrection begin with confusion? In a way, it does. Yet this is typical of the Divine One’s story engaging humanity. God not only surprises us by doing something we don’t expect; but sometimes it is doing something that we have never seen before, and we don’t have any vocabulary to articulate it. The Annunciation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are all examples.
This Easter Season brings the church to pray through the ancient texts of Acts of the Apostles. I invite you to listen to these readings this year. So many of the stories are the announcement that Jesus has been raised from the dead. This leads people to either believe or choose not to believe. On one level, I’m always amazed at how simple and basic their preaching is. Their preaching is testimony to the validity of the resurrection.
- Bringing this forward to today, have you ever recognized an experience of Christ in your life?
- Has Christ ever answered your prayers?
- Have you ever seen the presence of Christ in another person?
- Did Christ ever surprise you at a moment when you least expected it?
If you can say yes to any of these questions, then obviously, Christ is not dead. The resurrection is true, and your experience is testimony to it. An event that happened 2000 years ago has a direct impact upon your life!
Finally, a more important question challenges us: if you personally have experienced the living Christ and can say, “Yes, indeed, Christ is alive,” then where is that something new that the Divine One is already drawing you into; and what kind of community are we to become?
