Sunday, April 24, 2011

EASTER -2011

EASTER-2011
The boys and girls in Mrs. Stephens’ fourth grade Sunday school class entered the room and quickly found their seats on Easter Sunday. Mrs. Stephens wanted to help her students understand that there is so much more to the Easter holiday than new clothes, chocolate bunnies and egg hunts. It is more than family gatherings and tables filled with luscious food. Easter is about life. Easter celebrates the certainty of Jesus’ death on the cross, the fact that He was buried, and the reality that He came out of that burial tomb to conquer death – so that we can have life - eternal life with Jesus in Heaven and abundant life with Him here and now.
Mrs. Stephens came up with a plan. After sharing the Bible story of Jesus’ resurrection, she gave each one of her students an empty plastic egg and said, “We are going to take a walk outside and I want each one of you to find one sign of life and put it in your plastic egg.” As the children filed out of the room, Mrs. Stephens noticed Danny, a little Down syndrome boy who had been coming to her class for some time. His bright smile and sunny disposition had immediately won her heart. In fact, when it came to Danny, she often thought he had taught her so much more about the unconditional love of God and the joy of simply being a child of God than she could ever teach him. When she heard the other children make fun of him, it broke her heart. She always corrected the children and tried to help them see just how special Danny was, but Danny seemed oblivious to their hurtful words and thought of each child as his “buddy.”
The children soon returned from their walk, depositing their eggs on the teacher’s desk as they made their way to their seats. Inside one student's egg was a butterfly. In another was an ant. Others had collected flowers, twigs, blades of grass and leaves to fill their eggs. But one egg had nothing in it. Everyone knew whose egg it was. Mrs. Stephens silenced the giggles with a look of warning. When she asked Danny why he had not put anything inside his egg to show signs of life, his face broke into a huge grin as he responded, "Because the tomb was empty." Danny understood the profound truth of Easter. The empty tomb is the ultimate sign of life and a miracle like none other.
Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. The women knew Jesus was dead. Some of them had seen Him die. And they were sure His body was in the tomb; it had been there since Friday. But when they went to anoint the body on that Sunday morning, the tomb was empty!
When Mary of Magdela sees the empty tomb she thinks the natural thing. She makes up a reasonable story which makes it somehow understandable. Jesus’ body has been stolen. Looking at the supposed gardener she asks “If you have taken him away tell me where you put him.” It is the quite natural theory any one would make up. Where else could a dead body go if not found in the tomb ? Even the apostles did think in the same line. What would you or me would think if we were in Mary’s place ? The enemies of Jesus too spread the same story around: when the soldiers were asleep the disciples stole the body away. Now the next question is: Is it hard to search for a dead body missing in a small area like Jerusalem ? How can some one carry it to any distant place without any one noticing it ? Is it too small a thing that any one can tuck it in the pocket and sneak away ? Would the Chief priests leave any stone unturned to disprove the claim of the Christians that Jesus is risen by searching out the purported stolen body of Jesus ? Would you think that they allow their Jewish religion salvaged by the same person they tried to eliminate for the sake of protecting their religion ? No way.
Mary Magdelene kept looking further away than Jesus was. She kept looking for a dead body, an object; but Jesus was alive and standing beside her. The Risen Christ is nearer to us than any object could ever be. "Why are you seeking the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5) asks the angel ? If you look for only a historical Jesus, you are lost. He is alive and present everywhere. SO look for him with a new kind of eyes. So the resurrection is seeing our world in a new way.
Christians through the centuries have focused a lot of reflection on that large stone laid to the mouth of the tomb. Its removal was a sign of the resurrection, not a condition for it. Bede the Venerable wrote, “The angel rolled back the stone not to throw open a way for our Lord to come forth, but to provide evidence to people that he had already come forth.” He could present himself to the disciples in the locked house. And so, that stone could not have held him prisoner in the tomb. But we should not imagine that material stones are the hardest and heaviest things in the world. Thoughts, which are made of nothing at all, could be heavier and harder than any stone. We are able to seal our minds and hearts with impenetrable stones of prejudice, hatred and fear. "To behold the resurrection, the stone must first be rolled away from our hearts," said Peter Chrysologus.
What makes Christianity absolutely unique is the resurrection. In the Resurrection, reality becomes more wonderful than myth. Only the reality of the Resurrection can explain the reality of the history of the Church: A few weak, non-influential, and uneducated fishermen from Galilee, frightened out of their wits when Jesus was arrested and executed, suddenly become world travelers, phenomenally successful preachers, and valiant martyrs Would you think some one would make a sacrifice of their own lives for something that they knew was patently untrue ? Of course not. And the Church they spread continues to spread after they die, holding fast to the exact same doctrine they preached, century after century, in nation after nation. Only the abiding presence of the Lord can explain this, and only the resurrection explains the abiding presence of the Lord. This is what makes us, as Christians different.
As Christians, we must be prepared to demonstrate that Christ's resurrection was an event that occurred in time and space - that it was, in reality, historical and not mythological ( 2 Peter 1:16). The importance of this event cannot be minimized, for Jesus Himself proclaimed that His resurrection would prove His power over death (John 2:18-22). Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days. Not only that, but Christ's resurrection is the very heart of the gospel. St. Paul writes: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain; and your faith is in vain” (I Cor 15: 14). “Jesus is Lord, he is risen” (Rom 10: 9) was the central theme of the kerygma (or 'preaching'), of the apostles. The founder of no other religion has an empty tomb as Jesus has. Easter is the guarantee of our own resurrection. Jesus assured Martha at the tomb of Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will live even though he dies” (Jn 11:25-26). 3) Easter is a feast which gives us hope and encouragement in this world of pain, sorrows and tears. It reminds us that life is worth living. It is our belief in the real presence of the risen Jesus that gives meaning to our personal as well as our communal prayer, strength to fight against temptations and freedom from unnecessary worries and fears.
Christ's resurrection is not just a nice idea; it is the power of eternal life at work in us. The Easter Message means that God can turn prostitutes like Magdalene into disciples and broken reeds like Simon Peter into rocks. (Fulton Sheen). Let’s not preach a Christianity without the resurrection. Let’s prove to others that we are risen with Christ.
Let us remember that each time we try to practice Christian charity, mercy and forgiveness and each time we fight against temptations we are sharing in the resurrection of Jesus.

No comments:

Post a Comment