Our birth would have been no gain,
had we not been redeemed.
O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave, you gave away your Son!
These words from the Easter Proclamation that was sung tonight (or last night) puts this most sacred and central mystery of the Christian faith into perspective. Without Jesus’s life-giving death and resurrection, our lives would be empty. Too many people today try to put meaning in their lives in all sorts of different ways: in money, in power, in relationships, in things, and the list goes on. The Christian faith teaches us that without Jesus in our lives, we will dry up and wither away.
We live in a time when God is taking second place in many people’s lives. There is a growing numb er of people who refer to themselves as “Nones” when asked what religion they are. We, the community of believers, are challenged, like the first apostles, to be on fire with spreading the Good New of Jesus; the news that God loved us so much he gave us everything. The very Son of God went to the Cross for you and me to take away our sins and give us life. Like Mary of Magdala who ran from the tomb to tell the others, like Peter and John who ran to the tomb and saw and believed, we need to run from this church and tell the world about the Jesus we meet here. People need to hear the message of faith. However, what needs to happen first is that we need to experience the Risen Lord ourselves. Jesus wants to be part of our lives. He only asks that we be committed to him and to His Church before everything else.
Every Sunday is Easter. Every Sunday the Church gathers to proclaim to the world our belief in new life and new promise. Every Sunday, we partake of the Risen Lord in the mystery of the Eucharist. It is in this encounter that our lives find their true meaning. In fact, as we sang, without the Resurrection of Jesus and our belief in it, nothing has any value. Without a regular partaking of the Mystery of the Risen Lord in the Eucharist, we cannot be the people who God will use to transform the world: in our school, on the Little League fields, in our places of work, wherever. The mandate of those who believe in Jesus is to spread the message that the Resurrection promises.
So here is my suggestion. Take some of your Easter candy and jelly beans and Peeps and put them in the freezer. Every Sunday after Mass have a piece of a bunny or a some jelly beans. Have an Easter meal or an Easter BBQ if the weather is nice. Celebrate every Sunday like you celebrate today because every Sunday is today: Easter morning.
Christ is Risen! Yes, He is truly Risen!
