Second Sunday of Easter

Easter Sunday is a tough act to follow.  A crucified Christ rising from the tomb.  More alive than ever before, crying out “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”  Seven days have passed and already life seems different.  All is suddenly all so ordinary.  The job beckons, home life’s the same; hunger and crack roam the streets once more.  The liturgy is like it always was, although the lilies are still in pretty good shape.

Utterly understandable.  It doesn’t mean that Easter was a dream, does not imply that we are back to what we were before Good Friday.  It does mean that the highlight on our computer must move a space.  The stress is now not simply on Christ but more obviously on us.  This is the lesson today’s liturgy lays on you – lays on me.  How make all this real?  By plumbing the passages from Scripture that highlight today’s liturgy.

First, Jesus’ own disciples.  It is a puzzling picture.  Here it is, resurrection day.  John has already raced Peter to the tomb, has gone inside, has found it empty, and has told us himself “he saw and believed.”  Magdalene has rushed from the tomb to declare to the disciples “I have seen the Lord.”  But here they are hiding, huddled together behind locked doors, frightfully afraid.  It doesn’t make sense.

Suddenly, here is Jesus.  We have no idea what that risen body looked like – a body that could pass through the barred doors of a room, as he had passed through the sealed doors of his tomb.  But far more significant is what we know of his Easter visit to his friends.  First, “Peace to you.”  Peace fulfills what Jesus promised so solemnly after the Last Supper: “Peace is my farewell to you.  My peace is my gift to you, and I do not give it to you as the world gives it.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”  Do you remember another promise of Christ during the Last Supper? “You are sad now; but I shall see you again, and your hearts will rejoice with a joy that no one can take from you.”

Second, “As the Father has sent me, so do I send you.”  Disciples, those who follow Jesus, become apostles, those who are sent by Jesus.  Sent to do what?  To continue Christ’s mission: “I came that they may have life, and have it in abundance.”  But to carry Christ to others, the apostles need a God-given gift, the gift of gifts.  And so Jesus breathes on them: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” 

So much for the original community of Jesus’ own disciples.  Move now to a larger community of disciples.  The community has mushroomed: three thousand baptized in a single day, believers added day after day.  Of these, Scripture should have startled us: “There was not a needy person among them.”  No argument about it.  Luke’s description leaves no doubt: “Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and they held everything in common.”

One clause should challenge each Christian community wherever and whenever: “There was not a needy person among them.”  That fact is a prelude to the Letter of James: “What does it profit, if someone says they have faith but has not works?  If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

The problem, as I suggested at the beginning of my homily, is this: How can we keep Easter alive?  How?  From risen Christ to risen Christian.  You realized Easter in your baptism.  Paul put it powerfully.  “We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life.”  Newness of life?  Hurry back to the first two communities.  Fix your hearts and minds on faith and works.  “My Lord and my God” and “There was not a needy person among them.”

Such, I suggest, is our post-Easter task.  If one wants inspiration, thumb through Scripture and the lives of the Saints, chock-full of folks whose faith was love, whose belief was alive.  Its climax is Jesus who dies only with faith in his Father.  Works?  Once your faith comes alive, your love will tell you where God wants you to work it out.  Our parish mission statement says it all: “We are a diverse people of God whose faith inspires hope that shows itself in love.”  Easter is forever.  Alleluia!  Happy Easter!

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor