Easter

Easter 2012
Do not be alarmed. He is not here. He has been raised.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Christian Faith.
Many people observe the birth, life and death of religious teachers, prophets and leaders. Only Christians celebrate the birth, life, death and resurrection of a single individual.

Only Jesus is the fullness of God in human flesh. In Jesus, God unites His divinity with our humanity never to be divided from it. In Jesus God reveals who he is without the ambiguity of a written text or prophetic commentary. In Jesus God tells us, shows us and proves to us that God is love.

God just doesn’t have love. God is love. It was love that brought the co-eternal Beloved Son to earth. It was love and love alone that defined Jesus. It was love that brought Jesus to the cross to suffer and die. It was love that transformed pain, suffering, sin and death into eternal life.

Jesus did not die a martyr for a cause. Jesus died to swallow up death and transform death into eternal life through the personal reality of eternal love. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life because of what He did on the cross.

Preachers, teachers and prophets can share their insights about the divine. Religion can create rules and rituals to delight the senses and to attempt to control human choice. Law can restrain sin. Philosophers can ask interesting questions. Scientist can offer amazing theories. Poets, musicians and artists can inspire. But in fact, as St. Paul said: now we know in part.

In Jesus God fully and completely knows us. In Jesus we can know God. We know him not just in the tenuous categories of the intellect or the esthetic. We know God personally as a friend.

As we hear the accounts of the resurrection we hear how Jesus met each person individually. He met them where they were at that moment on their spiritual journey. John needed only to see the empty tomb to believe. Mary Magdalene needed to hear Jesus speak her name. The apostles not only needed to see and hear Jesus, they needed to touch him to be sure he was truly alive and physically present.

Jesus reaches out to each of us individually and personally. The normative means Jesus uses to meet us are the Bible, the Sacraments, and other people. He is not limited to those means. Those are the places and the persons he uses most often and consistently to speak to us.

In Jesus God reveals he is real, he is personal, he is love. That love is infinite and eternal. That love is steadfast, holy, unconditional, active, dynamic and creative. It is that love that enabled Jesus to endure the torments of crucifixion. It is that love that enabled Jesus to take within himself human sin. It was that love that enabled Jesus to embrace death, swallow up death, and transform death back into life- eternal life.

It is because Jesus is love that his sacrifice on the cross is personal. There is nothing abstract or esoteric about the cross. It is brutally real. And it is brutally personal. Jesus experienced the effects of your own particular and individual sins. Jesus experienced the death of every individual who has ever lived and will ever live. No one ever dies alone. Jesus is there.

It is because Jesus is love that neither sin nor death can have the last word for him. The physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is the victory of love and compassion over pride and death.

The victory of the resurrection is the new life God the Father gives all people everywhere in Jesus. The gift is universal. The Holy Spirit offers the gift to everyone in the world without exclusion. There is nothing you need to do to earn it. It is not a right you can claim. It is a gift. It is love. It is the risen Lord Jesus Christ offering himself to you and to everyone.

The new life is infinite and eternal love in Jesus Christ. The new way of living is the way of compassion, healing and reconciliation in Jesus Christ.

If you have never made a real choice to receive the new life in Jesus make that choice now and pray: Lord Jesus I pledge to you this day my life, my love, my loyalty. Amen.

The new life offers a new way of living. It is the way of worship, compassion and transformation. As you receive the blessed sacrament of divine love ask the Holy Spirit to lead you and empower you in this new way of living. The new way is the only way. The new way is a personal life giving and life transforming friendship with the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Do not be alarmed. He is not here. He has been raised. He has been raised for you for now and forever. Amen.