We are witnesses of all that he did

Homily for Easter – 1st Sunday Year C 2016

Acts 10:34a,36-43; 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8; John 20:1-18

INTRODUCTION

Do you remember the 1985 movie, Witness?  In this movie, Harrison Ford plays a detective, who goes into Amish country, to protect a young boy.  This boy had seen a murder taking place and was the sole witness.  Without the boy's testimony, the police and courts could not bring the murderer to justice. 

As we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, one might ask us: "Where is your evidence?  Who are your witnesses to testify to this great event of salvation?"

SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY

Four times in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter speaks of himself and others as being witnesses.

1.    After describing the great works of Jesus, Peter declares: "We are witnesses of all that he did."

2.    And then Peter goes on to describe the death and resurrection of the Lord; after which he again declares that he and the apostles were "the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead."  He is saying, trust us, who saw him with our own eyes.

3.    The third time, Peter does not use the word "witness."  But he says that Jesus commissioned the apostles "to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead."  In other words, the Lord asked them to be witnesses to his resurrection.

4.    Finally Peter goes back to the Old Testament to say that even the prophets had prophesied and thus borne witness to Jesus' life and work of salvation.

But how reliable are the disciples as witnesses? In another movie, My Cousin Vinny, an eye-witnesses wrongly identified the two boys as murderers, because she had poor eyesight.  Thankfully for us, the disciples are reliable witnesses.

We just heard John's gospel speak of three eye-witnesses: Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the other disciple, John himself.

·        Mary is the one who goes to the tomb very early on Sunday morning and finds the stone removed.  Remember in the Passion story we read on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, we heard that the stone had been placed there to stop the disciples from removing the body and claiming that Jesus had risen.  But now the stone was gone; something miraculous must have happened.  That's why Mary ran to the disciples to tell them what she saw.

·        Wanting to find out the truth, Peter and John ran over there.  John was younger and probably faster, so he got there first.  But knowing that age should always come before beauty, he waited for his older colleague to arrive and enter the tomb first.  They found an empty tomb and empty burial cloths.  Faced with this evidence, they saw and they believed.

But they did not keep that evidence to themselves.  They shared what they had seen with anyone who cared to listen.  In fact, Peter's speech in today's first reading is one example of this witnessing, this testifying to the Good News.  Like the murderer in the movie tried to kill the little Amish boy and stop him from testifying, the authorities also tried to stop the disciples from testifying.  But testify they still did, something that was carried on from one generation to another, until today.  That is how we today know that the Lord is indeed Risen and is alive.

CHRISTIAN LIFE

Since then, every Christian must also be a witness to the resurrection and testify to it.  Some might argue that we are only hearsay witnesses, not eye-witnesses, and so not admissible in a court of law.  But because our hear-say witness goes back to the very beginning, to the first eye-witnesses, what we know is reliable and is certainly admissible in the court of the spiritual life.  We have now joined the club of witnesses; and testify we must.  That is why St. Paul tells the Corinthians and us, "Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?"  Indeed we try to raise dough with our testimony in three main ways: whenever we preach the resurrection, celebrate the resurrection, and live out resurrection.

Unless we preach, the chain of transmission of the Good News will not continue. If you are like me, you heard the Good News of the resurrection from the words and example of your grandmother and grandfather, from your mother and father, from your teachers and catechists.

But do we grandparents, parents and teachers of today have the same courage to witness, to pass the baton of faith on to the next generation?  It seems that quite a few of us fear to impose the Good News on our children, family members and friends.  But witnessing and testifying is not imposing; it is simply presenting the Good News and giving the other person a chance to choose.  In a few hours, for example, some of us will be having Easter dinner with family and friends.  What a wonderful opportunity, to the share the Good News of Easter, by directing conversation away from prejudice to life-giving truth, by gently pointing out especially to the young, behaviour that gives life not death.  How will our children choose the Risen Lord's way of life, if they never heard about it in the first place?  Unless we give our testimony, the jury will decide against the Lord.

Our second witness comes from celebrating the resurrection in worship.  Did you know that the day when most people go to Church in this country is Easter Sunday, followed by Christmas and Mother's Day being the third?  It is fitting that we come to Church and celebrate Mass on Easter Sunday, the day of the Lord's resurrection.  After all, the real reason we have Mass is to celebrate the Lord's death and resurrection.  Let me repeat that, the real reason we have Mass, any Mass, is to celebrate the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

Right after consecration, in the memorial acclamation we say: "We proclaim your death or Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again."   The other option says: "Save us, Saviour of the Word; for by your death and resurrection, you have set us free."  That is why Sunday is like a small Easter and we come to Mass to stand in the witness box and testify to what happened on the first Easter: that the Lord Jesus died, but rose again on the third day.  Sunday after Sunday we hear this Good News proclaimed in the readings, and made present again in the bells, yells, and smells, in the signs and symbols, but especially in the Body and Blood of Christ, crucified but raised from the dead, for our salvation.

Finally, after preaching and celebrating, we must live like resurrection people.  That is why St. Paul tells us to "celebrate the feast not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."  Easter does not end here in Church; Easter should inspire everything we do.  Resurrection people love their God and their neighbour; resurrection people obey the ten commandments; resurrection people carry out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  We live out the resurrection in our lives because we must show others mercy that the Lord's resurrection has so graciously given us.

CONCLUSION

And so on this great feast of Easter, we each must look back on our lives and see what kind of witness I am in my preaching, celebrating and living.

·        Hopefully I am not a hostile witness, who is unwilling to testify, because of fear or indifference, testifying only if served with a sub poena.

·        Hopefully I am not an untruthful witness, who testifies willingly, but does not tell the whole truth and or any truth at all, thus committing perjury!

·        I hope that I am a cooperating and truthful witness, sharing not only what I have heard, but sharing how the Lord's death and resurrection has so changed my life, that now I have life in this world and the world to come.