The first disciples did not exactly experience the Resurrection event with the magnificence of Easter music and Easter flowers and a wonderful sense of celebration.
For the first disciples, their Easter faith was much more gradual. The first disciples encountered the empty tomb before experiencing the Risen Lord. The Easter Gospel speaks of the empty tomb experiences of Mary Magdalene and the apostles Peter and John. They only gradually came to an Easter faith.
An important truth of our lives is that we discover important things about our lives at the empty tomb. Just as the first disciples experienced the empty tomb before they came to a resurrection faith, we need to encounter the empty tombs of our own lives.
The experience of the empty tomb is especially appropriate for us on this Easter day. This year, Easter Sunday falls during the COVID-19 pandemic. A time when we are secluded in our homes and told to wrap our faces in cloth if we dare go out for groceries or supplies. COVID-19 is a death threat that has already made good on many lives.
This brutal virus makes us feel that we are locked up in a dark tomb for an impossibly long duration, as though the darkness of “Good Friday” might go on forever with little hope in sight. COVID-19 is virtually the Way of the Cross for all of humanity.
Yet today, as we celebrate Easter morning, resurrection means so much more to us than it did before. For we have been living in the darkness of this pandemic, confined to a kind of tomb-like existence. Life as we have been known it has stopped. We don’t go out to work. Our sports world has stopped. Our liturgies are only live streamed. We hide our faces.
As with the first disciples, our empty tomb experiences are the moments of darkness and confusion in life. As we peer into the empty tombs of the ups and downs of everyday life, we are challenged to see and believe as the apostle John did as he stared into the empty tomb.
It is an empty tomb experience when Gospel values cannot be recognized in the way we live our lives. Plain and simple, we need to walk our talk as the followers of Jesus. Yes, along with self-centeredness, greed, lust, power and control, fears, anxieties that are demons that many of us are familiar with, we also are confronted with how our lives have been turned upside down by this brutal virus.
More than ever on this beautiful Easter day, we need to trust and embrace the grace Jesus offers. The Risen Jesus calls us by name and offers us the grace to walk away from the empty tombs of the fears and the demons of our lives so that we live with Easter joy and an Easter peace. This indeed is our journey to an Easter faith.
For me, it is an experience of Easter joy to be connected with you live streaming and on Facebook. While not in my wildest dream was I thinking on Ash Wednesday when we began our Lenten journey to prepare ourselves for this Easter celebration that we would be celebrating Easter physically distancing ourselves from one another. For sure, I miss seeing your smiling faces and the friendships we share as a community of faith.
But what has not changed is our trust in the Risen Jesus. We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song. This virus has not dimmed one iota God’s love for each and everyone one of us. The Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are forgiven; and all are loved by the Risen Lord.
While in a very real sense, it is wise and prudent that we are physically distant from one another, that we are live streaming this beautiful Easter liturgy, but be assured that the faith communities of Holy Spirit and St. Joseph’s are not socially distant from our Risen Lord.
Jesus is present to us in this moment as much as He was present to Mary Magdalene on the first Easter day. Like Mary, we may have difficulty recognizing how the Risen Lord is present during these days.
Yes, we can feel sorry for ourselves that can’t celebrate Easter with the festive liturgy and the wonderful family gatherings that we are accustomed to on Easter day.
This Easter Day we are challenged to think differently about the blessings of our lives. I am a believer that we can find the joy of the Risen Lord in the blessings of life we enjoy on this day. Yes, our experience of Mass is only by livestream, but may our Easter blessing be that we are experiencing the Mass live streamed. Yes, we are confined to our homes, but may our Easter blessing be the gratitude that we have a home to be confined to. Yes, we can’t travel to be with extended family, but may our Easter blessing be the gratitude we have for the family we are with. Social distance does not lead us to social paranoia – fear of my brother and sister. Instead, may we be led to new forms of solidarity with one another.
May our Easter faith in the presence of the Risen Christ within our hearts fill us with an Easter joy. Allow yourself to be loved by the God who goes with us in this pandemic crisis. Yes, we are looking for a vaccine to protect us from this virus, but be assured that with the eyes of faith the vaccine we most need is found in our solidarity with the Risen Lord and in our solidarity with each other as a community of faith.
We are an Easter people. This means that are not buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits, dangerous addictions or this pandemic crisis. Our Resurrection faith gives us the Good News that no tomb can hold us down anymore -- not the tomb of despair, discouragement or doubt, not that of death. Instead, the joy of the Risen Lord fills our spirit.
May we listen as the Risen Lord calls us by name and welcomes us into the joy of sharing in His Risen life.