SEND OUT THY LIGHT

 A SERMON FOR EASTER SUNDAY

Let’s remember the very first Easter Sunday.  It is the end of the Jewish Sabbath and all is quiet in the Holy City.  The silence is reminiscent of a winter’s night thirty-three years prior—it is the silence that covered the land of Judea the night our Blessed Lord was born, “while all things were in quiet silence, and night was in the midst of her swift course.”

What happened to disturb the silence of this first Easter night?  Did anything disturb the silence?  It is the third day since the Crucifixion, since that eerie physical darkness had descended on the world at the hour of Christ’s death.  He who, in the beginning, had created light with his divine Word; who, at his Incarnation, became himself the Light of the World; who, at his Nativity brought light to the people who walked in darkness; now he was dead, and the lifeless corpse of this divine Son of the Most High is at rest in the quiet darkness of the holy sepulcher.  The black twilight that fell over Jerusalem on Good Friday may have dissipated, but a spiritual darkness still pervades the land, mixing with the awful memories of the week’s events to create an nervous atmosphere of apprehension.

So what exactly happened during this uneasy night?  There are no witnesses to the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The men closest to his tomb, Roman soldiers placed there to guard it, are asleep and they see and remember nothing.  This was the most spectacular event since the world’s creation, and yet there are no scriptural accounts, no revelation from God of what exactly happened. 

However, it is not unreasonable to speculate that in the course of that night, something silent but remarkable accompanied the return to human life of God’s only-begotten Son.  For an idea of what that could have been, we have only to look back at the other events of history, understandably few in number, that could rival the Resurrection in importance.  We know that at the Creation, the Incarnation, and the Last Supper, God shone Light where there had been darkness.  “Let there be light” were God’s first words of creation.  At the Annunciation, the Light of the World entered into the world as a human being.  And that same human, yet divine being, before he suffered and died on the Cross, left us with the light of the Blessed Sacrament, a light that still burns powerfully in the few churches in which the true Mass is preserved.  So is it not reasonable to expect that in the dreadful darkness of the tomb, the absolute blackness of a world that had crucified its Saviour, this same God would now produce the brightest radiance of all as our Lord rose from the dead,

“Let there be light!”  The divine nature of Christ, which of course, had never ceased to be, again follows the will of his Father in heaven and the Word of God issues the command for Light to replace the darkness of death.  The Breath of God that is the Holy Ghost once more descends over the darkness of the deep and, overshadowing the lifeless Body of Christ, breathes new life into it again.  In him is life once more, and the life is again the light of men.

It’s interesting that even scientists have confirmed that, accompanying the conception of every man in the womb of his mother, at the exact moment the Holy Ghost infuses an eternal soul into a mortal body, there is actually a very small, physical flash of light.  We can only imagine the intensity of that same celestial light as the Holy Ghost breathes our Lord’s divine nature back into his lifeless human body.  “Let there be Light,” the Light of Creation, the Light of the World, a light so intense that it burned a perpetual and three-dimensional image of our Lord into the Holy Shroud that covered his Body.

With this flash of divine light, the Body of Christ rises from the grave, and is again the “Light that shineth in darkness,” the darkness of the tomb, the darkness of a world that had just extinguished its own Light of the World. Life has returned to the Body of Christ.  “This is my Body, this is my Blood of the new and everlasting covenant,” and because it is eternal, because it is divine, it cannot die.  “I am the resurrection and the life:  he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:  and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

Without our Lord’s Resurrection from the dead, there could be no Blessed Sacrament.  Of what use would it be to eat not the bread of life, but something long since dead?  And if we do not receive this Bread of Life in the Blessed Sacrament, our eternal life is not simply jeopardized, not just compromised, but denied to us forever: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.”  Our eternal salvation, then, clearly rests on the Resurrection of his immortal Body, which assures of our own resurrection of the body and the life everlasting: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,” he said, “hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The Resurrection is not just a fact, not just a historical event.  It is the very meaning of our own life.  Celebrate this great truth with unalloyed rejoicing on this day.  Christ is risen!  And because he is risen, we too shall rise!

THE STRIFE IS O'ER

 A HYMN FOR EASTER SUNDAY

Translated by Francis Pott, 1861

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

1 The strife is o'er, the battle done;
the victory of life is won;
the song of triumph has begun.
Alleluia!

2 The powers of death have done their worst,
but Christ their legions has dispersed.
Let shouts of holy joy outburst.
Alleluia!

3 The three sad days are quickly sped;
he rises glorious from the dead.
All glory to our risen Head.
Alleluia!

4 He closed the yawning gates of hell;
the bars from heaven's high portals fell.
Let hymns of praise his triumph tell.
Alleluia!

5 Lord, by the stripes which wounded thee,
from death's dread sting thy servants free,
that we may live and sing to thee.
Alleluia!

ON THE THIRD DAY

 A REFLECTION FOR EASTER SUNDAY

The triple aspects of joy, sorrow and glory we find in the Rosary are reflected in the timeline of our Lord’s life, death, and resurrection.  In the Joyful Mysteries, the world had enjoyed thirty-three years of the Saviour’s presence.  For three of those years he was made manifest to us in his daily life, his miracles and teachings.   Then in the Sorrowful Mysteries, during the three days of the Triduum, we keep watch as for three long hours he hung on the cross of salvation, until his death at three o’clock in the afternoon.  And now after three days of darkness in the tomb, with the world empty and seemingly deprived of hope, the sorrow of despair is suddenly turned into everlasting joy as news of the Resurrection is spread abroad and the Glorious Mysteries begin.

 

This repetition of the triple element of time is no accident, and is meant to reflect the three basic elements of our existence.  When Christ became man, he not only dwelt amongst us, but he was one of us, a human being.  He shared the same joys and sufferings we do, and by his Resurrection, he showed us that we too will share in his glory.  It is this intertwined triple pattern of give-and-take between God and man that makes sense of our existence on this planet.  The joys of Christmas, of Christ’s birth and childhood, allow us to make sense of our own fleeting happiness, one that comes and goes with the vicissitudes of life.  The sorrows of Holy Week, on the other hand, show us how our own sufferings can make sense: by following our Master as he carries his cross, as he suffers death on that cross, our sufferings empower us to make some small reparation for our own sins, and better yet, to offer them up, like him, for the sins of the world.  And finally, the glory of the Resurrection provides us with that most important virtue of hope, a hope that we too, having shared in his joys and sorrows, may finally share in his glory.  It’s a most beautiful and perfect plan for us.  If only we would stick to the plan!

 

The trouble is, we don’t like the suffering part.  We devote our entire lives to avoiding it.  We take pills to take away our little pains, we spend a fortune on medical insurance and doctors’ bills, consume vast amounts of alcohol to try and stay happy, relaxed and mellow—so very many ways to stave off the miseries of life.  And yet, our Lord warned us that if we would be his disciples, we must take up our cross and follow him.  It’s not wrong to want to be happy and pain-free, but there again, we shouldn’t necessarily try so very hard to avoid not being.  The sorrows we sometimes face are a great opportunity to make sacrifices for God.  Such self-sacrifice doesn’t come naturally, as our fallen human nature constantly seeks natural happiness, but suffering should be embraced, at least when there’s no other choice, when our health fails, or an act of God or man robs us of a little happiness now and again.

 

Above all, let’s not do as the pagans do, and that is, to center our entire life on the search for pleasure.  For if we don’t see suffering in its true light, we are doomed to continually seek the opposite.  And the pleasures and joys of this life do not last very long, and can never truly satisfy.  Our Easter joy, on the other hand, is an altogether different kind of happiness.  It is a joy that illuminates our very souls with the knowledge that the gates of heaven are open to all who accept their crosses and follow Christ.  And as heaven is a place of everlasting happiness, then Easter is our annual reassurance that if we seek heaven as our only meaningful goal, we will be assured of a happiness the godless and wicked will never find, a joy that never ends.