Happy Easter!
Today we celebrate the joy of our Lord’s Resurrection. In our Gospel we encounter His apostles who “did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”
As with Christmas our celebration of Easter is to embark upon a season. It is not to celebrate this one day and then to move back life as if nothing has happened. In these days which lie ahead the apostles begin to learn about the meaning of Scripture and the fact that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Through their encounter with the living Lord in these days they became transformed and were finally prepared to be sent out to testify to the truth and to draw others towards this truth no matter the hardship, even if it be the loss of their own life.
If our Lord endured the cross without the Resurrection we would have no reason to celebrate this day or any day. After all every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection for this is the day that He rose from the dead. The apostles came to the tomb prepared to encounter a dead body, but instead they encountered the life giving reality of our faith. If they encountered a dead body then time would pass and the story of Christ would also pass from recorded history.
If you have not seen it I recommend the new movie “Paul, Apostle of Christ.” This movie sums up the life of the early Church. In the early Church there was the risk of being put to death for the faith that you practiced. They had to live in hiding in the hope that their community would not be discovered. If the Resurrection never happened this community would not exist because it would make no sense to die for such a cause. Yet these early Christians came to “understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”
Hopefully we too can come to “understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” I say this because to come to understand such a reality is to allow our life to be transformed. This understanding assists us in the midst of the many hardships of our life for from the cross that we are forced to bear something greater will come. This understanding assists us in turning away from sin because to do so is to come to embrace the Scriptures and what was begun in us at the moment of our baptism. Let us thus come to “understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”
Christ has Risen. He has risen indeed, Alleluia.
