What's the point?

Homily

3rd Sunday of Easter B2

14 April 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What's the point of life?  Who can tell me?

When I ask you all this question, you always say 'I don't know - you're the priest!  Aren't you supposed to be telling me the point of life?

Well, I have an idea, which I am happy to share.  Yet I know as well that there is no better time than Easter to ask this very question anew.  What's the point of life?   Easter is the time when we are meant to experience to the depths of our being what it means to be fully alive.  The most pivotal news in human history, a victory greater than all others combined, that Christ my Lord has Risen indeed from the dead as He said, is announced to us anew! And what is the announcement, made forcefully by St. Peter in today's 1st reading - that there is a love stronger than death, a love worthy of the gift of your entire life, all that you are right now and all you ever will be.

So what's the point of life again?  The longer I experience the things that really matter, the more I'm zeroing in on this answer alone - the point of my life is to participate as passionately as I can in the paschal mystery, the only process by which a universe cast down in renewed, and integrity of life is restored.

I'm all ears, truly, if you can beat that answer.  But I just can't find anything else that comes close.

I've heard so often that life is about being with those you love, or about making a difference.  These are great answers, but near as I can tell, they merely participate in the ultimate thing, and that one necessary thing is the Easter proclamation.  That Jesus Christ has appeared, and invited you intimately and personally into his suffering, death and resurrection. to help Him advance the process by which all thing are made new.

You know I love sports the the source of the best stories, and as a metaphor for life. Sports are mini-dramas played out in real time, full of surprises and pivotal plays, hail marys and comeback from the dead stories, fraught with opportunities to act with confidence and courage, accompanied by countless cameras and stats that make it impossible to hide.  In the course of just a few hours, a drama with characters and conflicts and results is played out with greater clarity than the ambiguity which often afflicts reality.

Yet sports aren't the meaning of life, even if I wish it were so, and if I make them so I worship an idol.  What then is the ultimate win that truly redeems a human life?  It's trust in the Resurrection, but more precisely, it's conforming my life to the passion of Christ, His desire to empty Himself for love of another, all the while trusting that this sacrifice is the source of new life.

The drama of my life at every turn can be inserted into the mystery of this Passion.  

There's plenty of competing world views out there to consider, plenty of things vying for your heart and soul, plenty of course to distact us into thinking nothing ultimately matters, so just make up your own meaning.

Yet there's also this mysterious news our there, celebrated each Easter, that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is at the crux of the meaning of life.  There's more, that the meaning of your life can participate too as the raw material and nexus for the recreation of a new heaven and earth that cannot fade into oblivion.

The drama of my life at every turn fits nicely into this Easter mystery, this Passion.  The point of life, near as I can tell, is to be in anguish until this mystery is consummated and accomplished through me.

+mj