Homily
Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
31 March 2013
Daily Readings
Check this out on Chirbit
Jesus Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead! Alleluia! Alleluia!
I know you've heard these words before. Even if they sound good on Easter morning, it's not a surprise. You were expecting me to say that - you were expecting to hear it. But how do those words hit you this morning? Are they more true, and more impactful, than anytime you have heard them before? Better yet - are you ready to repeat them with more meaning than you did last year, with more meaning than you have ever said them before?
If those words hit us with any less intensity this morning than that first proclamation that made Peter and John run to the tomb, then we might as well go home. For these words - Jesus Christ is truly risen - are the most mysterious and dramatic and profound words that have ever been spoken, and that ever can be spoken - in human history. There is no middle ground - either these words are everything, or they are nonsense and are nothing.
Without these words - Jesus Christ is truly risen - there is no point in repeating the most profound words that Jesus Christ uttered - this is my body, this is my blood - because without the Resurrection even the Eucharist loses its meaning and leads nowhere new. Without these words, even the most profound love the world has ever seen - the love manifested on the cross - ends in death. Without the truth of the Resurrection, the Church and humanity cannot say for certain that we have found or experienced a love that is stronger than death.
Thankfully we do not have to generate the faith to say these words this morning out of nowhere. Easter Sunday is the easiest day to proclaim the Lord's Resurrection as the thing I most know to be true out of all the things I know to be true. Nature herself sets the stage, as winter gives way to new life. The Church provides the sights and sounds and smells in Her sacred liturgy to heighten the senses and to pave the way for the proclamation. We profess not alone but with the whole Church throughout the world, led by the historical cloud of witnesses from the first apostles to the latest martyr, all of whom professed the Resurrection to the point of death, so that faith in the resurrection could safely reach us here in Lawrence, Kansas on the 31st of March, 2013. It is in this context that we profess with all our hearts and minds and strength today the beautiful Easter proclamation - Jesus Christ is truly risen.
All that support makes the Easter proclamation possible, but none of it makes your proclamation, or mine, any less personal or risky. For being a Christian is never to go with the flow. We are pitiable if we only renew our baptismal promises because everyone around me in Church is doing it. Professing faith is never something small. And today is not about showing up to buy a ticket at the eternal life lottery.
No what we do today is profess a faith that is exciting and dramatic, and a faith powerful enough to affect anyone who has become anesthetized to Christianity. For no proclamation has ever shaken the history of the world like an earthquake or so changed the dignity and destiny of man, as the proclamation that Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead. That proclamation is either everything, or it is nothing, and it can't be a proclamation that limps out from the Church on Easter Sunday. It can't be a proclamation ignored by a world that thinks Christians are those weak ones who need a myth to help them cope with the reality of life.
Against anyone who might think the Christian proclamation of the Resurrection is a myth for cowards or weak thinkers, we disciples of Jesus must be known as those who more radically and intensely than anyone else are searching for that love strong enough to conquer death. That search led us first not to the empty tomb but to the cross, where perfect love is revealed perfectly. On the cross we see a love that is ultimate truth and that casts out fear. So it is there at the cross that with Jesus our Lord Christians avoid nothing and fear nothing.
To be a Christian must be the antithesis of being a naive coward, for the wisdom of the cross compels Christians to be soldiers who live the truth that suffering and death are to be welcomed, redeemed and conquered, not avoided. A true Christian consequently proclaims the resurrection not as a vain hope in the future, but as a fruit of the cross that he has already begun to experience. For the first fruits of the Resurrection are experienced by us right now, whenever we dare to live the radical truth given by Jesus that whoever loses his life, saves it for eternal life.
You and I gather to profess faith in the Resurrection today not simply because this faith has been passed down to us, but because we have actually tried being a Christian! For we are the most pathetic people of all if the Resurrection is something we have to pretend to be true, rather than something I've discovered to be true. Woe to us if we cannot profess our life getting bigger, and our growing younger, every time I lose myself in the adventure of following Christ through his suffering and death, to the glory of His Resurrection!
I beg you this morning not to say something pitiable with your profession. Please do not say something easy. But with sharp minds and pure hearts and courageous wills, let us say personally and together profess
the most profound and dramatic and mysterious words that have ever been spoken, or that can ever be spoken. Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
31 March 2013
Daily Readings
Check this out on Chirbit
Jesus Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead! Alleluia! Alleluia!
I know you've heard these words before. Even if they sound good on Easter morning, it's not a surprise. You were expecting me to say that - you were expecting to hear it. But how do those words hit you this morning? Are they more true, and more impactful, than anytime you have heard them before? Better yet - are you ready to repeat them with more meaning than you did last year, with more meaning than you have ever said them before?
If those words hit us with any less intensity this morning than that first proclamation that made Peter and John run to the tomb, then we might as well go home. For these words - Jesus Christ is truly risen - are the most mysterious and dramatic and profound words that have ever been spoken, and that ever can be spoken - in human history. There is no middle ground - either these words are everything, or they are nonsense and are nothing.
Without these words - Jesus Christ is truly risen - there is no point in repeating the most profound words that Jesus Christ uttered - this is my body, this is my blood - because without the Resurrection even the Eucharist loses its meaning and leads nowhere new. Without these words, even the most profound love the world has ever seen - the love manifested on the cross - ends in death. Without the truth of the Resurrection, the Church and humanity cannot say for certain that we have found or experienced a love that is stronger than death.
Thankfully we do not have to generate the faith to say these words this morning out of nowhere. Easter Sunday is the easiest day to proclaim the Lord's Resurrection as the thing I most know to be true out of all the things I know to be true. Nature herself sets the stage, as winter gives way to new life. The Church provides the sights and sounds and smells in Her sacred liturgy to heighten the senses and to pave the way for the proclamation. We profess not alone but with the whole Church throughout the world, led by the historical cloud of witnesses from the first apostles to the latest martyr, all of whom professed the Resurrection to the point of death, so that faith in the resurrection could safely reach us here in Lawrence, Kansas on the 31st of March, 2013. It is in this context that we profess with all our hearts and minds and strength today the beautiful Easter proclamation - Jesus Christ is truly risen.All that support makes the Easter proclamation possible, but none of it makes your proclamation, or mine, any less personal or risky. For being a Christian is never to go with the flow. We are pitiable if we only renew our baptismal promises because everyone around me in Church is doing it. Professing faith is never something small. And today is not about showing up to buy a ticket at the eternal life lottery.
No what we do today is profess a faith that is exciting and dramatic, and a faith powerful enough to affect anyone who has become anesthetized to Christianity. For no proclamation has ever shaken the history of the world like an earthquake or so changed the dignity and destiny of man, as the proclamation that Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead. That proclamation is either everything, or it is nothing, and it can't be a proclamation that limps out from the Church on Easter Sunday. It can't be a proclamation ignored by a world that thinks Christians are those weak ones who need a myth to help them cope with the reality of life.
Against anyone who might think the Christian proclamation of the Resurrection is a myth for cowards or weak thinkers, we disciples of Jesus must be known as those who more radically and intensely than anyone else are searching for that love strong enough to conquer death. That search led us first not to the empty tomb but to the cross, where perfect love is revealed perfectly. On the cross we see a love that is ultimate truth and that casts out fear. So it is there at the cross that with Jesus our Lord Christians avoid nothing and fear nothing.
To be a Christian must be the antithesis of being a naive coward, for the wisdom of the cross compels Christians to be soldiers who live the truth that suffering and death are to be welcomed, redeemed and conquered, not avoided. A true Christian consequently proclaims the resurrection not as a vain hope in the future, but as a fruit of the cross that he has already begun to experience. For the first fruits of the Resurrection are experienced by us right now, whenever we dare to live the radical truth given by Jesus that whoever loses his life, saves it for eternal life. You and I gather to profess faith in the Resurrection today not simply because this faith has been passed down to us, but because we have actually tried being a Christian! For we are the most pathetic people of all if the Resurrection is something we have to pretend to be true, rather than something I've discovered to be true. Woe to us if we cannot profess our life getting bigger, and our growing younger, every time I lose myself in the adventure of following Christ through his suffering and death, to the glory of His Resurrection!
I beg you this morning not to say something pitiable with your profession. Please do not say something easy. But with sharp minds and pure hearts and courageous wills, let us say personally and together profess
the most profound and dramatic and mysterious words that have ever been spoken, or that can ever be spoken. Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead. Alleluia! Alleluia!
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