Cycle A | Easter | Easter Sunday
REFLECTION
– By Fr Ugo Ikwuka
Archway, London
Someone suggested that Jesus appeared first to women after his resurrection because he wanted the message to spread fast.
A former British Prime Minister David Cameron was once asked the meaning of Easter and he explains: “Easter is compassion, forgiveness, hard work, and responsibility!” That’s the politician at his best; one-size-fits-all! Yet, that disturbingly reflects how today’s Christians lack the full clarity of the core of their faith. In a recent survey, only 31% of Christians in the UK believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead.
Properly understood, Easter is an earthquake, an explosion. It is the belief that Jesus of Nazareth, a first century Jew, who spoke and acted in the person of God, and was brutally murdered at the prime of his life, was alive again through the power of Holy Spirit. Hard to believe? Yes. The disciples themselves never believed initially. We have the benefit of knowing how things eventually unravelled, then, they did not. With someone they had expected to liberate Israel dying like a common criminal on the cross, it was simply a failed project.
They may also have recalled Jesus’ telling cry of hopelessness on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Thus, when they heard that the tomb was empty, their immediate response was not that of “Halleluiah!” In their hiding from what killed their Master, they thought the worst had happened – not only had their Saviour died, but now someone had taken his body.
What then could explain their sudden and inexplicable faith than that he had truly risen; faith so tenacious as to withstand even the trials of martyrdom. Even by historical account, St. Paul, writing only 25 years after the event, lists all the people who saw Jesus after the resurrection, the majority of whom were still alive (1 Corinthians 15:8). Instructively, to the women who went to the tomb on Easter morning and found it empty, the angel asked in subtle rebuke: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” One should therefore not waste one’s time seeking in dead arguments the resurrection of the one who is alive and at work in the Church and in the world.
The grace of the Risen Lord has sustained the Church for two thousand years through her persecutions, sufferings, heresies, divisions, corruptions, disappointments, and reforms. This grace can remove sadness from our hearts, doubts from our minds and complacency from our souls, replacing these with joy, renewed faith and a new zeal. This grace is being poured out on us today and through this season. All we need do is to open ourselves to receive them and stake claim to the power of the Risen Lord in our lives today.
Jesus had to die and in the most gruesome way because as a light and a force for good, he had to be vehemently resisted by darkness that is a sinful world. By the account of his passion, he experienced the worst of human dysfunction; the explicit betrayal of his friends, the injustice of the Jewish Authorities, the cowardice of Pontius Pilate, the people’s preference for a notorious criminal, the incredible brutality of the soldiers. Worst of all, we see those who mock him even as he hangs dying on the cross. And he is overwhelmed by it all. He dies, crushed by the evil of the world.
This is precisely why it grew dark in the middle of the day as Jesus was dying. Light seemingly gave way to darkness, love to hatred, life to death. In the words of Jesus himself, it was the reign of darkness! Then comes the resurrection! Jesus emerges, saying ‘shalom’ (peace) to those who betrayed and abandoned him; demonstrating that God’s love and forgiveness can overcome all the sins of the world. That’s why St. Paul could exclaim with certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God; neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor height nor depth, nor any other power can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). Why? Because we crucified God with the worst we could do and God still loves us.
Thus, the cross is the word through which God has responded to evil in the world. Sometimes it may seem as though God is silent in the face of evil but He has spoken, and his answer is the Cross of Christ which stands for love, mercy, forgiveness. This too should be the answer of the Christian in the face of the evil that continues to work in us and around us. Yes, Easter joy confirms the wisdom of unselfish love which doesn’t make sense to the world. It celebrates that ultimately, the victory of all forces of good are assured; people, who following in the footsteps of Jesus, must face resistance.
It assures that if justice, goodness, truth and life itself are suppressed, tortured, even killed and buried as is often the case, they will ultimately rise in triumph. On the other hand, it places under judgment all forces of darkness; those who suppress the truth. This was immediately evident in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles as Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, addressed his Jewish audience: “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence when he decided to release him. You denied the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be released to you. The author of life came and you put him to death.’
Now, while Peter is glorifying the risen Jesus here, he is tacitly placing under judgment those who contributed to his death. This is one reason why authentic Christianity that preaches undiluted physical resurrection of Jesus has always been a threat to tyrants; to oppressive systems and individuals.
Most of the great social revolutionaries such as Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were people who hold and are inspired by this powerful undiluted message of the physical resurrection of Jesus which shows that God’s judgment has fallen on all the powers of cruelty and hatred. May Easter continue to inspire and re-assure people of goodwill. On the other hand, may it continue to be a lesson for the wicked on the futility of evil.
Happy Easter.
