Our Lord is Risen! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed!
Happy Easter My dear brothers and sisters in the Risen Christ,
A butterfly, of course, is simply a transformed caterpillar. But for those who believe in the resurrected life, it is an image that can speak powerfully of what happens to them through death and resurrection. Caterpillars appear to have a fairly pleasant life.
One day the caterpillar begins to spin a series of threads around itself. When it finishes the spinning, it is enclosed in a cocoon, a structure that almost seems to resemble a miniature tomb. Initially, as it experiences the darkness, the former caterpillar might ask itself, ‘Is this all there is?’ After a pleasant life of eating and basking in the sunshine, is this all that remains – nothingness and darkness? But slowly a change begins to take place, and one day the tomb-like cocoon opens to reveal a creature that has been totally transformed, something that has been made quite beautiful. If this newly-transformed butterfly could think as humans do, it might say something like this: “I look so different. Everything around me looks so different. I can see plants and flowers that I never saw before. This is tremendous and gorgeous!” The butterfly moves its two shiny wings and immediately it soars into the air. Where the caterpillar noticed only the surfaces of leaves, the butterfly sees the entire garden. Where the caterpillar chewed on plants, the butterfly unfolds its proboscis and feasts on nectar. Its way of being is completely transformed. And yet if you forget about the wings and look closely at the butterfly’s body, you can see a faint vestige of the caterpillar.
The word Resurrection does not mean a restoration to One’s previous life, as happened to Lazarus, the widow of Nain, and Jairus’s daughter. It is not resuscitation. It is something infinitely more. The word resurrection designates a quantum leap forward into a totally new life. It is something no human being had yet experienced. In other words, the body of Jesus that rose on Easter Sunday was radically different from the body that was buried on Good Friday.
It is first of all a change, change in one’s attitude towards life, towards acceptance and towards the material things of this world. Tomb is not going to be something permanent for Christians. It is just a time of transformation into glory.
When we study the Easter accounts in the Bible, we see not only that Jesus was remarkably transformed on Easter, but also that His disciples were transformed.
Easter transformed them from a band of despairing people into a brigade of daring people into a brigade of daring missionaries. At the command of Jesus they set out to carry the message of Easter to the four corners of the earth.
And everywhere they preached the good news; the power of Easter began to work in people’s lives, just as it had in their own lives.
Beautiful things began to happen. Despair began to give way to hope; darkness began to give way to light; hatred began to give way to love; sorrow began to give way to joy. In short, everywhere the disciples preached, the power of Easter began to work miracles in people’s lives. And those miracles haven’t stopped yet. They continue to happen in our time and in us. That’s the good news of the Easter. This is the good news; our Risen Christ is alive and right now he is with us. Our Lord and Master is not dead; He is alive. Alleluia.
I know some of you are still have doubt in the Resurrection. If you are struggling with your faith, I ask you to peer into the empty tomb and to ask yourself what this means. And pray for the gift of faith. Let’s look at some of the evidence.
Jesus’ Body Was Missing. If the Jews could have found it, they could have stilled the preaching of Jesus’ resurrection that filled Jerusalem. But they could not.
The Body Wasn’t Stolen. The Romans had no motive. The Jews had no motive. Ah-ha, you say, the disciples stole it. There is the matter of the Roman guards and the disciples’ initial disbelief when the women brought them the news early that Easter morning. This brings me to my third point. If the disciples had stolen the body, you wouldn’t expect them to risk their lives. People don’t die for what they know is not true. But the disciples put their lives on the line, and nearly all were eventually martyred for their faith. They certainly believed it. The church mushroomed size in Jerusalem, the very place he was crucified. Followers of Jesus in the city of Jerusalem grew from a few dozen to thousands upon thousands soon after Jesus’ resurrection. They believed it was true.
Contemporary Documents Refer to the Event. Jewish historian Josephus writes about Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
Jesus’ resurrection means that death is not the end. That though my body may lie moldering in the ground, Jesus, whom the Father raised from the dead, gives me eternal life. Ultimately, we Christians believe, our bodies, too, will be raised from the dead. And since Jesus is not dead, people can encounter him today. He’s alive; That’s what Easter is all about! Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The story is told of a child who began to read the Gospels. Like billions before her. She quickly became charmed by Jesus. Suddenly, she ran out of her room crying hysterically. She ran into the arms of her alarmed mother. She cried: "They killed him. They killed him." Her mother comforted her and then whispered to her, "now go back and finish the story."
Unlike that child, we know the rest of the story. "Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here."
If you have not seen the Risen Lord then we might have allowed a stone to prevent us from meeting the risen Jesus? Let me put before you an imaginary illustration. There are no true characters involved. I am a true patriotic person I like to hear only my language in my own style. God forbid, suppose I am an unknown racist I don’t like to see anyone other than me. I became annoyed and went out of the church. Then I see a person coming inside, I try to open the door for him saying are you going to the church! Oh! Gosh! I just came out from the church, I cannot handle that thing. That person was coming to the church after a long period of time. He turned back to me and said. Thank you and he went away. I am happy and I raised my placard saying I have done it. I am a catholic but annoyed one. The best solution is to kill that person whom I don’t like but I know I will be end up in Jail so I did everything to kill his spirit and his enthusiasm. But I am still a catholic, you know, “annoyed catholic”. Tell me my brothers and sisters; am I covering me from seeing the risen Lord with a big stone? Am I helping others to see Jesus? Remove that pride of Stone and see the risen Lord in your lives.
Yes dear Brothers and sisters, we need to live a resurrected life. We are people of Easter. How should we live as Easter people? By living the life of Cross. By taking the cross as our model; a symbol. It takes two pieces of wood to make a cross. That is important for us today, as we celebrate Easter. The vertical stick could represent God’s love for us. God so loved the world that he sent his only son to die for us. And we need to love that God from our Part. The horizontal stick represents God’s call for us to love one another. It is our response to God’s love in Jesus, and completes the cross. There are two horizontal arms to the cross, and two ways that we can love one another. The first way is through relationships. How important - indeed, essential it is that we learn to love, forgive and accept one another. The second arm of the cross is service. God’s message through the cross is that we must serve one another. Jesus spoke clearly about that when he said that if anyone wants to be his disciple, they must take up their cross and follow him. It is not easy to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others, but that is what the cross means. Jesus showed us what it means by accepting to die on the cross for us. The bottom line of following Jesus is that we must let go of our hunger for power, control and glory, and learn to serve one another, to wash each other’s feet each day as we did on Holy Thursday.
After the Resurrection and Ascension, Jesus stands before God. God says, “So, how do you think it went?” Jesus says, “I don’t know.” God says, “Well, what if they didn’t get it? What if the message wasn’t understood?” Jesus says, “I have no other plan.”
Happy Easter My dear brothers and sisters in the Risen Christ,
A butterfly, of course, is simply a transformed caterpillar. But for those who believe in the resurrected life, it is an image that can speak powerfully of what happens to them through death and resurrection. Caterpillars appear to have a fairly pleasant life.
One day the caterpillar begins to spin a series of threads around itself. When it finishes the spinning, it is enclosed in a cocoon, a structure that almost seems to resemble a miniature tomb. Initially, as it experiences the darkness, the former caterpillar might ask itself, ‘Is this all there is?’ After a pleasant life of eating and basking in the sunshine, is this all that remains – nothingness and darkness? But slowly a change begins to take place, and one day the tomb-like cocoon opens to reveal a creature that has been totally transformed, something that has been made quite beautiful. If this newly-transformed butterfly could think as humans do, it might say something like this: “I look so different. Everything around me looks so different. I can see plants and flowers that I never saw before. This is tremendous and gorgeous!” The butterfly moves its two shiny wings and immediately it soars into the air. Where the caterpillar noticed only the surfaces of leaves, the butterfly sees the entire garden. Where the caterpillar chewed on plants, the butterfly unfolds its proboscis and feasts on nectar. Its way of being is completely transformed. And yet if you forget about the wings and look closely at the butterfly’s body, you can see a faint vestige of the caterpillar.
The word Resurrection does not mean a restoration to One’s previous life, as happened to Lazarus, the widow of Nain, and Jairus’s daughter. It is not resuscitation. It is something infinitely more. The word resurrection designates a quantum leap forward into a totally new life. It is something no human being had yet experienced. In other words, the body of Jesus that rose on Easter Sunday was radically different from the body that was buried on Good Friday.
It is first of all a change, change in one’s attitude towards life, towards acceptance and towards the material things of this world. Tomb is not going to be something permanent for Christians. It is just a time of transformation into glory.
When we study the Easter accounts in the Bible, we see not only that Jesus was remarkably transformed on Easter, but also that His disciples were transformed.
Easter transformed them from a band of despairing people into a brigade of daring people into a brigade of daring missionaries. At the command of Jesus they set out to carry the message of Easter to the four corners of the earth.
And everywhere they preached the good news; the power of Easter began to work in people’s lives, just as it had in their own lives.
Beautiful things began to happen. Despair began to give way to hope; darkness began to give way to light; hatred began to give way to love; sorrow began to give way to joy. In short, everywhere the disciples preached, the power of Easter began to work miracles in people’s lives. And those miracles haven’t stopped yet. They continue to happen in our time and in us. That’s the good news of the Easter. This is the good news; our Risen Christ is alive and right now he is with us. Our Lord and Master is not dead; He is alive. Alleluia.
I know some of you are still have doubt in the Resurrection. If you are struggling with your faith, I ask you to peer into the empty tomb and to ask yourself what this means. And pray for the gift of faith. Let’s look at some of the evidence.
Jesus’ Body Was Missing. If the Jews could have found it, they could have stilled the preaching of Jesus’ resurrection that filled Jerusalem. But they could not.
The Body Wasn’t Stolen. The Romans had no motive. The Jews had no motive. Ah-ha, you say, the disciples stole it. There is the matter of the Roman guards and the disciples’ initial disbelief when the women brought them the news early that Easter morning. This brings me to my third point. If the disciples had stolen the body, you wouldn’t expect them to risk their lives. People don’t die for what they know is not true. But the disciples put their lives on the line, and nearly all were eventually martyred for their faith. They certainly believed it. The church mushroomed size in Jerusalem, the very place he was crucified. Followers of Jesus in the city of Jerusalem grew from a few dozen to thousands upon thousands soon after Jesus’ resurrection. They believed it was true.
Contemporary Documents Refer to the Event. Jewish historian Josephus writes about Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
Jesus’ resurrection means that death is not the end. That though my body may lie moldering in the ground, Jesus, whom the Father raised from the dead, gives me eternal life. Ultimately, we Christians believe, our bodies, too, will be raised from the dead. And since Jesus is not dead, people can encounter him today. He’s alive; That’s what Easter is all about! Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The story is told of a child who began to read the Gospels. Like billions before her. She quickly became charmed by Jesus. Suddenly, she ran out of her room crying hysterically. She ran into the arms of her alarmed mother. She cried: "They killed him. They killed him." Her mother comforted her and then whispered to her, "now go back and finish the story."
Unlike that child, we know the rest of the story. "Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here."
If you have not seen the Risen Lord then we might have allowed a stone to prevent us from meeting the risen Jesus? Let me put before you an imaginary illustration. There are no true characters involved. I am a true patriotic person I like to hear only my language in my own style. God forbid, suppose I am an unknown racist I don’t like to see anyone other than me. I became annoyed and went out of the church. Then I see a person coming inside, I try to open the door for him saying are you going to the church! Oh! Gosh! I just came out from the church, I cannot handle that thing. That person was coming to the church after a long period of time. He turned back to me and said. Thank you and he went away. I am happy and I raised my placard saying I have done it. I am a catholic but annoyed one. The best solution is to kill that person whom I don’t like but I know I will be end up in Jail so I did everything to kill his spirit and his enthusiasm. But I am still a catholic, you know, “annoyed catholic”. Tell me my brothers and sisters; am I covering me from seeing the risen Lord with a big stone? Am I helping others to see Jesus? Remove that pride of Stone and see the risen Lord in your lives.
Yes dear Brothers and sisters, we need to live a resurrected life. We are people of Easter. How should we live as Easter people? By living the life of Cross. By taking the cross as our model; a symbol. It takes two pieces of wood to make a cross. That is important for us today, as we celebrate Easter. The vertical stick could represent God’s love for us. God so loved the world that he sent his only son to die for us. And we need to love that God from our Part. The horizontal stick represents God’s call for us to love one another. It is our response to God’s love in Jesus, and completes the cross. There are two horizontal arms to the cross, and two ways that we can love one another. The first way is through relationships. How important - indeed, essential it is that we learn to love, forgive and accept one another. The second arm of the cross is service. God’s message through the cross is that we must serve one another. Jesus spoke clearly about that when he said that if anyone wants to be his disciple, they must take up their cross and follow him. It is not easy to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others, but that is what the cross means. Jesus showed us what it means by accepting to die on the cross for us. The bottom line of following Jesus is that we must let go of our hunger for power, control and glory, and learn to serve one another, to wash each other’s feet each day as we did on Holy Thursday.
After the Resurrection and Ascension, Jesus stands before God. God says, “So, how do you think it went?” Jesus says, “I don’t know.” God says, “Well, what if they didn’t get it? What if the message wasn’t understood?” Jesus says, “I have no other plan.”
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