Matthew 28:1-10
We will be going on a little trip later this week. Joan and I will be heading for Front Royal, VA, where we will see our oldest daughter and her family and our son and daughter in law. We will take off early Wednesday and make the long trip, taking turns driving, stopping to get a bite to eat, usually at a McDonalds; trying to read or converse as we travel along, and we’ll do that for about eight hours or more depending on traffic. It’s not that much fun to make a long car trip, especially when you are as tall as I am and your legs get restless. What keeps us going, though, is that we know that at the end of the trip we’ll be visiting with our kids and grandkids, enjoying their hospitality, and being thankful for the blessings of family. We make the car trip because we believe in what will meet us when we get there.
Now if we don’t make the car trip, we still believe that some of our kids and grandkids are in Front Royal. But in this case it isn’t important whether we believe it or not.
Easter is the Feast Day on which we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. As Catholics, we believe this is not just wishful thinking and it doesn’t mean that He is still alive in our hearts, or he lives on in the good works we do. I’ve talked to a few protestant ministers who don’t believe in a literal resurrection. We do. Not just of the soul, but of the body as well. Saint Paul famously said, “If Christ did not rise from the dead, then we are the most pitiful of men.” Pitiful, because we believe in a falsehood.
But Paul is not talking about belief in the sense that I believe my family members are in Front Royal. It could be that I’m wrong about that, but if it doesn’t make a difference in my life, then it isn’t important. Paul is talking about the first kind of belief -- the belief that has consequences. If I believe that my family members are in Front Royal and as a result I set out to spend eight or more hours driving there, then whether they are there or not becomes very important.
One thing that has always fascinated me is that the accounts of the Resurrection in the four gospels are all so different. And other references to the resurrection in the Acts of the Apostles are different from those. And maybe Our Lord engineered it that way. Because if all the testimony about the Resurrection was the same those of us who believed it would be doing so as a simple fact, like Paris is the capital of France. If I’ve never been there and have no intention of going, it doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not. But if I believe that Jesus rose from the dead and that makes a difference in how I live and how I orient myself towards my death, that’s the kind of believe Paul was talking about, belief that would put your life on the line, believe that would change your behavior, your values, your relationships with other people and with the world itself. And if what I believe isn’t true, I’ve wasted my life, and martyrs have gone to their deaths for nothing, and missionaries have given up their lives to bring people into the Church Jesus founded -- for nothing.
The Resurrection is not just an historical fact. People motivated by the Resurrection changed the world, and the changes continue, despite increasing opposition from the forces of evil. The resurrection means that there is a God, a god of Love, and as Saint John says, a God who is love itself. And Love wants to bring everything together, and not lose anything out of all that there is.
The Resurrection means that death has been defeated. Defeated not just for Jesus, but for you and me. Because Jesus, who is Love in the flesh, made it very clear that he wants us to be with him, and has the power to do so. He told a criminal on the cross next to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” He said it, he did it. He told his apostles, “I go to prepare a place for you. I will return for you and will take you to myself (or as another version says, “take you into myself”) so that where I am, there you will be also. If Love defeats death, and we are taken into love by our faith, by our baptism, by becoming what we eat in the Holy Eucharist, death for me and for you is already defeated.
But the resurrection does not just change the world, does not just defeat death. It also means that Love has experienced all the evil that the world, the flesh and the devil are capable of, and overcame it all, which means that Love understands and not just sympathizes with us but participates in our pain and suffering in this world, making it possible for good to come from the worst tragedy, Resurrection to spring from crucifixion. Jesus is never so close as when we suffer.
So this Easter let’s think about our belief in the Resurrection. I’m going to set out on a long and not particularly pleasant car trip based on the belief that I will be sitting down in an easy chair with my children, enjoying a drink, waiting for a nice meal, and having a pleasant conversation. And I’ll have to come back, making another long and not particularly pleasant car trip. Am I living as though the Resurrection is not just a fact, but a goal, an end, a reason for why I do what I do? I hope so, because I want to hear those words, “Today you will be with me in Paradise ''.
