Easter Sunday 2005

1.        How often we have friends try to explain something to you and half way through they will say, “You know what I mean.” I am so tempted to say, “No I do not !” because if I did you would not have to explain it to me. In our first reading soon after the Resurrection, Peter is speaking to the Roman Centurion Cornelius. Here is a non-Jew who probably never heard of Jesus. If he did, Jesus was probably know as a rabble rouser, a itinerant preacher who would hardly attract any attention apart from the Jewish Authorities. Yet Peter starts his message with “you know brothers and sisters.” In fact neither Cornelius nor his family would not know.

          Our Gospel ends with words, “as yet they did not understand the Scriptures..” There is a lot of presumption of knowledge, and a lot of ignorance about the Resurrection. However, when we come to think of it, 2005 years later -  the word Resurrection has been heard so often. We also have hope is in life after death. Yet like the Apostles we know so very little. We cannot comprehend the Resurrection. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard what God has prepared for those who love God.

2.       Resurrection is a story of life followed by death leading back to life. Simple as the words may sound, it is a mystery, an experience that has never happened in our life time, and probably never will. Who has experienced someone who has died and come back to life? However, our own lived experience helps us to live out the mystery of the Resurrection. In the last three months, I have lost seven friends. Four priests: three of them were my co-workers, they touched my life with their generosity, their love of God, their love for people, the giving of themselves. The fourth was a shy altar boy who “served Mass” when I was in Guyana. I did not even know he studied for the priesthood. I learnt only yesterday that he died a few weeks ago at the tender age of 40. The other three were lay people who died young - of cancer, of an aneurysm, or pneumonia.

3.       Our Gospels show Peter and the Disciple Jesus loved looking at the tomb. They believed but did not grasp the meaning of the Resurrection. They lived in a culture where life was not of much value. Sacrifice of human life was quite common. Fathers could sacrifice their sons, their daughters to placate a higher power. The Resurrection show us that for God ALL LIFE is very precious. Whether they are saints or sinners, the “souls of the just are in the hands of God.” They are not just wiped out, annihilated, forgotten when they die.

4.       In the Acts, Peter will tell his Jewish listeners, even though he is apparently speaking to the Gentile Cornelius. He will tell his Jewish listeners that Jesus came from God and because they did not accept him, they put him to death. But every life - and especially the Life of the Only begotten Son of God is so precious, God raised him up. It is a promise to each one of us.

          Paul will reaffirm that in the second reading: the reading to the Colossians. Paul will tell us that our lives are hidden in Christ. However, because Christ has been raised from the dead, we will share in his glory when we die and rise again.

5.       In 2005, the message of the Resurrection is for us to treasure life and appreciate every moment that God gives to us.

          The story is told of a King who invited any person in his Kingdom, who had a grievance or had a wish - to come and see him in person. He would set a day every week, when there was an open court. He would grant anything provided it was fair. As usual, there was a long line waiting to see the King. A beggar joined the line with the intention of telling the King he had nothing, and would the King give him something which would help him make a decent living. However, when his turn came, before he could speak, the King said, “What have YOU got to offer to me?” The beggar was so surprised and so upset, that he rudely gave the King - three grains of wheat from a ear of wheat.  He had plucked these on the way and  he was munching them. When he got out of the court, he found among the many grains of wheat still in his pocket - three grains were turned into pure gold. How he cursed himself.  “I should have given him all I had” the beggar muttered in disgust.

6.       Easter Sunday is precisely the same message,

God has given us seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years - like the grains of wheat we can turn them into Gold -- or we can let them slip through our hands, slip through the holes in the pocket. What do I make of every encounter I have with another person. How precious is the phone call of a friend, how important is it for me to take time and write a note saying Thank You. How special is it that I take time, get in the car and be present at a funeral, a birthday, a baptism party. Life is not a matter of Dollars and cents,  - we have yet to see a U-haul truck attached to a funeral hearse.

 It is a call to treat each one’s life as special, - the 1000s of lives of Americans in the War on Iraq, the 100s of 1000 lives of Iraqis - a few terrorists, but the majority of them innocents caught in the cross fire of War.

We should be mourning them just like Mary and Martha: “Lord if you had been here, my brother, my sister would not have died.” But the Lord is here in the persons of you and me. Jesus said of himself, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” We as members of Christ’s body have also to be the Life and Resurrection for others - for the voiceless in our communities, for the many people caught in political, ethnic, civil and religious wars. - whether they be in Yugoslavia or Rwanda, Sudan or Iraq, Lebanon or Ireland.

7.         In the ancient culture - as in the time of Abraham, when human sacrifice did not even raise an eyebrow, human life was so expendable. It could be taken so easily. It could be snuffed out like blowing out a candle. Have we changed so much - or have we not changed at all in our day, when our first priority is the Right to Bear Arms, where defence of the country become pro-active, where the death penalty does not seem so illogical. I wonder why we are surprised at our children in the Columbine Massacre, or as it happened again in the Massacre at Red Lake, Minnesota? We can only hand down to our children what we ourselves believe and how we ourselves act. If we are truly believers in the Resurrection, - if we are truly an Easter People. If the gift of Christ at Easter to his Apostles was “peace be with you.” Then we can only be filled with a deep, deep gratitude for the Gift of Life, and a deep appreciation and a firm determination to protect, nourish, and respect the lives of others - all others, whether they are saints or sinners.