Easter Sunday - Sunday, April 21, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josép Reinaldo Martínez-Cubero, OHC
Easter Sunday - Sunday, April 21, 2019

Romans 6:3-11
Luke 24:1-12

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

They had hoped he would save them from the oppression of Roman domination. He had promised God’s reign of justice and peace. Now Jesus’ followers were afraid, confused, and feeling abandoned by God. They were paralyzed, and hiding in the shadows. Well, the men were paralyzed and hiding, apparently not the women!

All four gospels have unique elements in their resurrection stories.  Mark, regarded as the primary source, has only eight verses on the first Easter.  Both Matthew and Luke expand the story in their own individual directions according to their audience. And that is disconcerting to us twenty-first century humans who are so attached to facts and certainty. But the Gospels are about meaning and truth not facts.

In the case of Luke’s Gospel one of the most notable features is that it has the most women on the scene. Three are named: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, but also “the other women” were with them. Those women at the tomb are given the message of the Resurrection, and it was terrifying, but they heard it, and it made sense to them. Those women returned from the tomb, and told the apostles what they had experienced, and their words seem to the apostles an “idle tale, and they did not believe them.” The women were not heard. (And all the women in the room are probably thinking: “Ain’t that always the case!”) Those apostles were too caught up in their fears and their disillusion, not being able to reconcile Jesus’ execution with their hopes and dreams of a new world. If God could let the best of them die such a horrible death, then perhaps God was no god at all. And don’t we still ask that very thing? If God can let the horrendous sufferings, about which we all know, happen, then perhaps God is no god at all.

We want a God who will take our responsibility away from us; who will erase the messes we create for ourselves; who will save us from the times we live in, the circumstances of our lives, from ourselves. We refuse to see that in Jesus’ death, God dies.  God in, with, through and beyond us, God woman, God gay, God transgender, God black, God in prison, God raped, God the latino from a “shithole country” seeking asylum at our southern borders, God dying again and again. We forget or refuse to accept that the mystery of the Incarnation reveals that divinity is not exclusively transcendent and different from humanity. For Christians who want to grow up and take responsibility, our humanity, personal and corporate, divinized in Christ, is the instrument, and the focus of God’s salvific and liberating work.

So, here we are today, at the fundamental and nonnegotiable experience at the heart of Christian faith- the Resurrection of Jesus. As the shock slowly went away, and they came to realize that those women’s experience was no idle tale, the apostles began to realize that the tomb was indeed empty because it could not hold Jesus anymore than death could take him from them. Jesus lived in, with, through and beyond them, and his presence continued to mold them into a new reality. They began to experience Jesus after his human death in a way that assured them that Jesus, in the full integrity of his personal humanity, was alive with an entirely new kind of life. The disciples experienced Jesus as present among them, and able to interact with them. The disciples experienced Jesus as living within them. And because of this indwelling, they were now Jesus’ post-Easter body, the instrument of his presence in the world just as our natural bodies are the instruments of our human presence in the world. Jesus had done the work of God dwelling in him. Now Jesus’ followers were carrying on Jesus’ own work in the world as Jesus dwelled in them. They began to understand that death, while horrific and very real, is no longer final. Life can be lived fully. Love can be given extravagantly. Justice is the way to peace, and is worth seeking.

Saint Paul explained it to the Romans and the Corinthians, and the Gospels present it through the Easter narratives. Jesus now lives the absolute, eternal, and indestructible life of God. But his life is fully personal, truly human as well as divine, because the Risen Jesus remains fully and truly human. This is the fullness of life that Jesus came to bring, that whoever truly believes in him will have eternal life.

To be Christians is to be people of the Resurrection. More and more of us today know that Jesus did not die to save us from some fallen state. More and more of us know that Jesus did not die to appease an angry God. Jesus didn’t save us from the past. Jesus showed us that we too have the capacity to be the light of the world! We already possess the ability to evolve and become. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection show us the way to be LOVE; that power at the very heart of reality. Our call is not to leave Jesus hanging on the cross but to join him as God’s people of the Resurrection. When we finally let go of the fears that enslave us, Resurrection happens. When the Mary’s, Mary Magdalene’s, and Joanna’s of this world are heard, Resurrection happens. When we welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, Resurrection happens. When we give voice to the voiceless, Resurrection happens. When we embody LOVE Resurrection happens again and again.

I will close with the words of the wonderful poet, Lucille Clifton:

the green of jesus
is breaking the ground
and the sweet smell of delicious jesus
is opening the house and
the dance of jesus music
has hold of the air and
the world is turning
in the body of jesus and
the future is possible

 Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!