EASTER HOMILY ON SUNDAY: OUR DIVINE SAVIOUR IS LIVING, ALELUIA -ALELUIA
Second reading: Colossians 3:1-4
Gospel John: 20:1-9
My
dear brothers and sisters today is the day that the Lord has made, let’s us
rejoice and be glad in it as we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ. I once again say happy Easter to you all….and together we proclaim that
the Lord is risen alleluia, alleluia. We are Christians because of the fact
that Jesus rose from the dead. His Resurrection is the foundation of our faith
and our hope, and through Baptism and Confirmation we are inserted into the Paschal
mysteries of Christ, dying, buried and raised with him and with him, we shall
also reign. We would not be calling ourselves Christians if Jesus had not risen
from the dead. His resurrection made him the LORD of all the living and the
dead.
We
have had a journey of 40 days (Lenten Season) which was meant to prepare us to
celebrate with vigor the Solemnity of Easter. Jesus offered himself as the Perfect
Sacrifice through the Eternal Spirit and His Blood purifies us from sin and
makes us fit servants of the living God through whom we are sanctified and
redeemed. Therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is for our own redemption since
through Baptism we die with him, through Resurrection we raise with him to Eternal
Life.
The
Resurrection of Jesus reminds us that His death was not in vain. Indeed, the
cross that he hung upon was the tree of life through which we continue to be
reborn by the sacrament of Baptism. Jesus’ going to Jerusalem to suffer had its
climax in His glorification which was attained through the Resurrection. He is
thus the beginning and end of our faith having endured the cross regardless of
its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
God
has truly Blessed us in Christ and through Christ at the cost of his blood, we
have been redeemed. Today we are proud to unite ourselves with the Mother Church
in proclaiming alleluia to the risen Lord through whom we have found
deliverance and forgiveness of our sins. By dying, Jesus destroyed death and by
His Resurrection, he restored us to new life through Him. Earlier
on, Christ had proclaimed that He is the way, the truth and the life. At the
rising of Lazarus, He told Martha that he himself was the Resurrection and
today we celebrate the fact that he is the Lord of life, raised up by the Father
and He himself by His power will in turn raise us.
My
dear brothers and sisters, we are not meant only to celebrate the Resurrection
of Jesus Christ. We ought not to end in mere celebration but we are called to
be witnesses of Jesus’ life and deeds. We are called to proclaim that He is
risen and He is the Lord of all not only for Jews. The risen Christ is a
universal King/Savior and through Him, God showed his universality as well. The
First Reading shows that Jesus is the Savior of all mankind including the
Gentiles and all nations away from Jerusalem. Peter in his speech shows how
Christ had been put to death by hanging him on a tree but God’s power over Him
manifested itself when he raised Him on the third day. After his Resurrection, Peter
shows that Jesus did not appear to everyone but to the disciples who had been
chosen by God as witnesses. We are all invited to take up the task of
witnessing to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ which we are celebrating today.
Our faith in the Risen Christ must be witnessed to all people.
We
are the disciples by our Baptism and our mission is to proclaim Christ who
suffered, died and was raised from the dead on the third day. The same Christ
as professed in the Creed will come again in glory to judge the living and the
dead. Our vocation as Christians is nothing other than proclaiming and
preaching the risen Christ who was ordained by God as the judge of the living
and the dead. More to preaching the risen LORD, we must believe in His name and
the message preached by prophets so that we might receive forgiveness of sins through
him. With this, we must celebrate Easter as new creatures who are ready to live
in sincerity and truth.
By
Jesus’ death and Resurrection, we obtain new life and St. Paul in the second
reading bases on this in imploring us to seek things that are above because we
have been raised with Christ who sits at the right hand of God the father. Dear
friends, we must keep in mind that the Christ who died and rose again is the
foundation of our life and without Him we are nothing. Jesus was aware of this
and he gave us the promise that He will be with us always. Remember when he commissioned
the disciples in Mt. 28:19, he told them to go and make disciples of all
nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit and affirmed that he was to be with them always till the end of ages.
This is the promise that Christ gives, that He will never abandon us as long as
we are proclaiming His message -the good news of His Resurrection.
Prophets
had spoken about a messiah who was going to redeem human kind by his suffering
and death. He was to defeat such a death because he was the Son of the Living God
and the anointed One who could not succumb to eternal death since He had power
over it. This was Jesus the Son of God who himself at the cleansing of the
temple said ‘destroy this temple and in three days I will build it again’. This
was an utterance which made the Scribes and Pharisees furious because they did
not know that Jesus was referring to His own body as the temple since he was
going to be killed but raise to life in three days. This became true as
narrated in John’s Gospel which we just heard this morning.
It
was early on the first day of the week when Mary Magdalen came to the tomb and
found that the stone had been removed from there. She was shocked in seeing
this and she ran to tell the disciples about it, ‘she found them and said, they
have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid
him’. Mary Magdalen was the first woman and the first disciple to witness the
empty tomb and when she told the disciples, they immediately went to the tomb
to witness her message. Simon Peter entered into the tomb and saw only the
clothes which Jesus was wrapped in but Him he never saw. By this time, together
with the other disciples, they had not understood what had really happened to
their master until He himself made a manifestation to them. They only believed
that the tomb was empty but they could not remember the message which had
earlier been proclaimed by the prophets about the messiah -that He must suffer,
die and rise from the dead. By this time, they had not fully understood that Christ
had been risen and later Jesus himself appeared to them and they believed.
Therefore,
my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we have heard that we are called to
witness and to proclaim the risen Lord but without himself revealing his
mysteries to us, we cannot proclaim him. We need the help of the Holy Spirit in
giving witness to the risen Christ. When he first appeared to Mary Magdalen,
she thought that he was a Gardner. She could not immediately conceive him as
the real Jesus. Even when he appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
They thought that he was a stranger in Jerusalem who was walking with them yet
it was Jesus himself. Let’s us ask the Holy Spirit to fill us as and help us to
understand our mission of proclaiming the risen Lord to all nations. Let’s us
pray that Jesus who himself walked the way of suffering and crucifixion may
give us the grace to suffer and die with him as we await to raise with him in
his glory. The Lord be with You.
Deacon
Peter Wakubario, Camilian
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