04/04/2010 - EASTER SUNDAY - C
1Reading Act 10,34.37-43 Psalm 117 2Reading Col 3,1-4 (1Cor5, 6-8) Gospel Jn 20,1-9
"Death with Life contended: combat strangely ended"! This is how today's
Sequence expresses a reality. Death, wanted by the hatred of the evil one, challenged
Life, present in the one who loves us with a perfect and faithful love. Death was
able to open the tomb to swallow the Lord of Life, but was not able to hold him
there within. On the contrary, he, by entering into it, made it a departure point
for Life, Life Eternal. The tomb was even anointed with perfume like the room prepared
for a wedding feast: in fact, the dying Jesus, has given life in the same act of
love that unites God-groom with Church-bride.
Today, we enjoy the fruit of this victory, and we celebrate it with great joy, sharing
in the one God the Father prepared since the beginning to heal the effects of sin
of Adam. It is because of that sin that death entered the world, because of the
jealousy of the devil, who continues to seed fear, terror, violence, hatred, and
suffering. Today that death doesn't terrify us, because Jesus won it: he didn't
let death scare him: he let death swallow him for he knew that being present within
it, that he would change it. Through him and thanks to him, death turned to be a
perfect act of love, the most beautiful moment of a life, because of this, divine
life is shown.
What Mary Magdalene tells us, turns out to be the most beautiful news that the world
has ever heard. Mary is scared because she herself took it negatively: "They
have taken away the Lord from the tomb". She had not yet understood what was
being proclaimed: it was not bad news, but the most beautiful one. She was thinking
that someone must have profane the tomb, was open from the outside, by wild men,
but it was wide open from within, terrifying the ones who were guarding it. Men
didn't do anything, they just slept, but the Lord himself destroyed their work,
made useless their work with which they have closed and sealed the tomb.
The risen Lord fills us with hope. God is still able to intervene in our situations
that scare us, just where we feel impotent, unable to rejoice. If Jesus is risen,
there could be no situation that can make us despair. If Jesus is risen, we can
continue our journey here on earth with trust, even so with joy. Now that Jesus
is risen, our eyes are not anymore condition by what happens around us, but are
enlightened by "the things above".
We might remain still in the uncertainty in which Peter and John found themselves
because we are weak and find it hard to see our everyday situations in the light
of the Word that is given to us. But we can help one another, as the two apostles
did to believe the words of Mary and run towards that place which is no longer a
witness of death, but a place that witness the most surprising victory ever in the
history of humanity. We help one another to see the signs of God's work, the little
and real signs of his love which is able to create new things. We would enjoy of
the victory of Jesus over the evil one, especially over that sin that continues
to condemn us. With his resurrection, Jesus became the judge of all, believers and
non-believers. The believers shall enjoy a favorable judgment, a judgment that forgives
sins.
Because of this we sing:
To the Paschal Lamb offer sacrifice and praise
The sheep are ransomed by the Lamb;
The undefiled, has sinners to his Father reconciled.