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Reflections
for Sunday, April 8, 2012
Christ is risen! We should get a smile on our face when we hear this
Gospel of the two disciples running to the tomb and the one outrunning the
other. What confusion they had that day. They had seen the burial of
their Master and thought Him dead forever. Now they begin to get news, bit
by bit, that His body is gone. They don't yet understand, but they begin
to have hope that something really incredible has happened. They begin to
reflect on what He had told them.
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells us that Jesus was not
visible to everyone, but to those who believed. His chosen followers began
to be able to understand what had happened by looking at the Prophets and
the writing of the Jewish Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament.
On this day of Resurrection we are invited to see Jesus as our risen Lord
and to come to understand Him more and more by understanding the Prophets
and the writings of the Jewish Scriptures. The more we understand the Old
Testament, the more we can understand Jesus and the New Testament.
He is Risen! He is truly Risen! We can understand this when we begin to
understand more completely how the Prophet Isaiah was able to see that one
person could bear the sins of us all. We can understand more and we read
the Psalms and see in them a clear movement in the direction of belief that
there is life after this life.
The Letter to the Colossians is clear that we must have a new way of
thinking in order to understand Christ. It is not easy to accept so much
on faith, yet it is possible if we only put ourselves at the disposal of
God.
For the early Christians, the empty tomb became the symbol of life and of
belief - that tomb in which the body of Jesus no longer rested in death.
Death has now lost all of its meaning. Instead of the end, death becomes
the door to new life. We can come to look forward to death. We can speak
to those who have gone before us in death.
Today, my sisters and brothers, we celebrate the triumph of life over
death, the triumph of light over darkness and the joy of Christ's rising
from the dead for us. Let us rejoice and be glad in Him. Alleluia!
Readings of the day:
First Reading: Acts 10.34a, 37-43
Second Reading: Colossians 3.1-4
Gospel: John 20.1-18++
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