Homily Easter 1: Christ is risen, he is risen indeed

Homily for 1st Sunday of Easter 2019 

Acts 10:34,36-43; Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; John 20:1-18 

Introduction 

Happy Easter to you all!  But let us try the Paschal greeting common among Eastern Christians.  They greet each other with "Christ is risen," to which the response is "he is risen indeed."  Let us try that out.  "Christ is risen . . .  ." 

But what do we mean when we say that Jesus Christ is risen, risen indeed?  I would like to reflect on three points drawn from our gospel, that help us understand what the resurrection of Jesus and ours actually mean. 

Scripture and Tradition 

Did you notice that both today's gospel from Saint John and last night's gospel from Saint Luke opened the resurrection story with: "On the first day of the week"?  Jesus rose on the first day of the week. 

But what is the first day of week? 

• The calendars of most countries, perhaps even your work calendar count Monday as the first day of the week, perhaps because they are focused on work and we usually grudgingly go back to work on Monday. 
• In the Islamic world, however, Saturday is the first day of the week. 
• But in the Jewish and Christian tradition, Sunday is the first day of the week. 

And so this phrase "on the first day of the week" is intentionally used to point us to the meaning of the resurrection.  This phrase points back to first day of creation in Genesis.  For it was on the first day "when God created the heavens and the earth," when "God said: Let there be light, and there was light," when "God saw that the light was good," calling the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And all this happened on the first day" (1:1-5). 

The resurrection of Jesus, taking place on Sunday, is similarly a new creation, the culmination of a whole series of events as we heard in the many readings of last night, that bring about a new world, the Kingdom of God.  Mary Magdalene came to the tomb when it was still dark, just as it was dark when God began to create the world.  But Mary Magdalene left with the light of the resurrection news, just as God created the sun and the stars to provide light.  At the resurrection, God is at work again, starting afresh, creating anew.  And as we know, the world has not been the same since the first Easter. 

But why is the resurrection of Jesus a new creation?  That brings us to the second point of our reflection, focusing on the empty tomb found by the women, the empty burial cloths found by Peter and John.  For these signs point to a deeper meaning of the resurrection than is commonly understood. 

If you were to ask people, including us Catholics, "what does it mean that Jesus rose from the dead?" you would perhaps receive several different explanations – and most of them would be wrong, very wrong. 

Some think of the resurrection as meaning that Jesus came back to life, in the same way that Jesus raised to life the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the daughter of the synagogue official Jairus (Mark 5: 35-43) and Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha (Jn. 11:1-44). But this is not the resurrection; this is simply resuscitation, which is someone coming back to their previous life, not a new life.  Moreover, a person that is resuscitated will die again.  In fact the religious leaders tried to kill Lazarus, and indeed all three people died again.  In the case of Jesus, after he rose from the dead, he would not die again; he lives on forever.  Jesus is risen, he is risen indeed. 

A second misunderstanding of what the resurrection is, is what is called “reincarnation.”  The idea of reincarnation, that is, coming back but in another human or animal body, has recently made some inroads into the Western world through some New Age practices.  In some of the Asian religions the goal of life is for soul to return to this earthly life.  Thus those who live an upright moral life can expect to return perhaps as Meryl Streep or Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington or Antonio Banderas.  But those who lead a wicked life, after death can expect to return as pigs, or sheep or even worse, nutria. 

Even in Bible, there are hints of a belief in reincarnation, as when for example Jesus asked his disciples who people said he was and they replied: “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Mt. 16:14).  But both before and after his resurrection, Jesus did not come back as another person.  He came back as himself, but a glorified self who could leave the tomb without removing the big stone, enter rooms even with doors closed.  For Jesus is risen, he is risen indeed. 

A third promising but still imperfect explanation is the one that says the resurrection means that Jesus' soul entered into eternal life and his soul would live forever.  This is what the Greeks believed, in the immortality of the soul, that at death the souls of the just would not die, but would leave behind the bodies and go on to live eternally.  Even in the Old Testament, the books of Daniel and Wisdom that speak about life after death, limit themselves to the soul being immortal, saying nothing about what happens to the body. 

But even this explanation is not enough, because when Jesus appears, he does so not just with his soul, but also with his body, as he will show the doubting Thomas, by having him touch his hands and side.  For Jesus is risen, he is risen indeed. 

That is why we must return to the gospel story itself to find the true meaning of the resurrection.  And the answer is right there in the empty tomb, the empty burial cloths.  For if Jesus had merely resuscitated, his body would be there, just like they had to open the tomb to retrieve the resuscitated body of Lazarus.  That is probably why even Mary Magdalene, the women and the apostles, who were witnesses to the resurrection, don't claim that Jesus is resuscitated, or reincarnated, or come back to life only in some spiritual way.  Besides, they don't tell the story in the way we tell stories saying "once upon a time" or "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away."  No.  They simply assert that Jesus of Nazareth, their friend and master, is alive again in a new way.  For they understand the resurrection to mean a new form of life, that has both the body and the soul, no longer in the way we live in this world, but a in manner of life that is at once bodily, but also heavenly.   

A few years ago a box of ancient bones dated from the time of Jesus was discovered in the Near East.  Some people claimed that these were the bones of Jesus.  A dear Catholic friend of mine, who I am sorry to say, has more piety than good sense, was very excited about this find.  Aghast, I had to quickly explain to her that while we Catholics really love our relics of saints, Padre Pio, even the Shroud, the one relic that we neither have nor desire to have is that of the body of Jesus.  For the Jesus is risen in body and soul.  His body and soul were reunified in a new glorified state, one from which he will never die again. For Jesus is risen, he is risen indeed. 

Christian Life and Conclusion 

And so, to the third point of our reflection.  Mary Magdalene, Peter and John, "saw and believed"; they became witnesses of the fact that Jesus was risen in body and soul, sharing with others what they saw and believed.  That is what St. Peter in our first reading was boldly proclaiming to anybody who cared to listen, that Jesus is risen and is risen indeed. 

May the good news of the resurrection, understood correctly, give us hope for our own resurrection of body and soul.  At the end of time we too hope to do what Jesus did on the first day of the week, rise in body and soul.  We shall return, not to this life, not even as some glamorous movie star, but as a better form, a glorified form of ourselves, a 2.0 version of ourselves. 

But to ensure our resurrection into life, not into death, we must live like people of the resurrection, as St. Paul admonished the Colossians: "Brothers and sisters, If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God . . . . not of what is on earth."  Jesus has opened the path to resurrection; he has shown the way to the resurrection. 

And all this is possible, because Christ is risen, he is risen indeed (repeat)!