Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord
is risen. Dear friends today’s celebration is the foundation for our Christian faith.
Without Easter, there is no Christianity. St. Paul Says to Corinthians; “if
Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your
faith” (1 Cor 15:14). Today’s celebration proves that Jesus is not mere ethical
teacher nor a miracle worker, rather a GOD. Yes, He is God. One thing that
differentiates the God of Christianity from gods of other religions is the resurrection of Jesus. Gods in some
traditional religions claim to be living forever but none of them have
undergone death and resurrection.
St. Anselm in his proof
for the existence of God says; we cannot imagine something that is greater than
God. Similarly, we cannot imagine something that is greater than the
resurrection of the person. However, the resurrection of our Lord is not an imagination
but a historical fact. The resurrection event being a historical fact could not
be negated by anyone. The factual evidence for the resurrection of our Lord
gives reason for our faith. Since, God created humans as intellectual being, He
wants humans to have faith that is reasonable to his/her intellect. God has not
downplayed our capacity to reason. The resurrection of the Lord is the reason
and foundation for our faith. We may not understand the resurrection in itself
fully, but this event being a mystery to comprehend serves as the basis to
believe. Our faith begins from an extraordinary and mysterious event. The comprehensibility
of incomprehensible nature of the resurrection event opens a new era – an era
of Christianity.
In the Gospels, we see
that the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection are women. The apostles are
first given a message to recall the preaching of the Lord about His
resurrection. Then only the risen Lord appears to the apostles. There are
witnesses for Jesus’ passion, death and burial. Interestingly, there is no one
to witness the rising of the Lord from the tomb, not even the guards. In Matthew’s
Gospel we see angels coming down from heaven, roll away the stone and sit on it
(Mt 28:2). The presence of heavenly beings move the guards to be like dead
persons (Mt 28:4). At that time, there is no one inside the tomb. The body of
Jesus is not there. This shows that the guards do not know when the Lord has
left the tomb. They have continued to watch over the tomb even after it has become
empty. Simon Peter says that the risen Lord appeared only to a few chosen
people (Acts 10:41). The believers see risen Jesus, other witness only the
empty tomb. The opponents of Jesus do know that He would rise on the third day.
They did not fully believe that He would rise from the dead. Nevertheless they suspected
that His disciples would take away His body from the tomb, to proclaim that He
is risen (Mt 27:64). In one way the opponents become strong evidence for Jesus’
resurrection. Their guards witness both the heavenly beings and the empty tomb!
In addition, the witnesses of the empty tomb of Jesus, see the burial cloths
too (Jn 20:6-7). This shows that the body of Jesus has not been robbed. The glorious
risen body of Jesus does not require earthly cloths.
For past six weeks, we have
been preparing for this great day. Now that the day has come let us make sure
that the fruit has been borne. Let us not lose the grace we have received
during the season of Lent. May the risen Lord begin a new era in our life. Let
our lives be renewed in this Easter celebration as we renew our baptismal
promises. May this greatest event in the history cause greatest changes in our
lives. Happy Easter to one and all!
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