The one they had come to see was gone. The tomb was empty. The white burial cloth was folded up and laying on a stone. Scripture says they “did not yet understand that he had to rise from the dead.”
The question is: “where is he? Where did he go? How can I find you, Jesus?”
It’s the same for us two thousand years later.
I remember when my father died in 1988. He had been declining for some months and the night he passed my sister and I sat with him as he breathed his last. (Many of you have had that scary but holy moment.)
It was so weird. I remember thinking about the large person he was. How he loved birds, gardening, Italian spaghetti, his country, and his Catholic Faith. How he hated military parades, foreign cars, squirrels, and the New York Yankees.
I looked at his hands that held a gun in the army, cut my hair as a kid, played catch in the yard, and took my hands in his, the day I became a priest. His deep baritone voice called your name like no one else.
“Dad, where are you?” Don’t we all ask that when someone we love is gone? We feel the space they lived in, the chair, the porch, the work bench. I know his body lies in death . . . but where is the one who lived in that body?
Our Christian faith proclaims something quite extraordinary. Something that science (physics, biology, history and chemistry) cannot verify or prove . . . Jesus Christ is risen from the dead . . . and present to us in the Spirit.
What makes us so sure that he lives? Each of us must look inside with this one. Why do I believe? Is it because the Pope says so? OR, because that’s just what I was taught? OR, it makes for something nice to teach the children? I hope that’s not your answer.
Why do we believe? In the end it’s because we believe in love. (Not the love in romance, not the love of hobby or pastimes, not the love of beauty and art.
We believe in a love God shows to us in the life of Christ. A love never seen or imagined before. Someone who touched the lepers sores. Someone who forgave his murderers from the cross, who emptied himself totally to the will of his Father. That man is God in the flesh. He died on a cross. And his Father raised him from the dead.
We believe that Jesus is alive because countless men, women, and children have dedicated their lives to him in a living friendship of love. And this has changed the world.
Here are some conversations that witness to Faith in the Resurrection:
“What made you able to forgive that person?
- “Jesus forgave his executioners. He asks me to do the same.”
“How can you go on in hope after that tragedy?” - “Christ will be with me. He is all I have at this moment.”
“Look there’s no point; you’re poor, you’re single, you’re pregnant.” - “God wants this baby. Christ will help us.”
“How do you know Jesus is risen in glory?” - “I just know. It just comes to me. I can’t explain it.”
Easter invites us to surrender to the love of God that comes to you in Jesus Christ.
Peace.
Fr. Tim
