“He saw and he believed.”
The Lord is risen from the dead. Alleluia. Alleluia.
That is the refrain that we say over and over today.
And this is the good news of the gospel.
Today is the completion of the Incarnation.
Today is the day on which we celebrate
that God gave us the fullness of his plan.
Last night, we celebrated at the Easter Vigil,
welcoming in 10 new Catholics into our fold.
We celebrated with tons of symbols and signs;
we had the fire outside, which was burning brightly
then we entered into the darkness with our candle lights.
It was stunning celebration.
We had the candlelight here burning brightly singing the Exsultet.
Then we told stories.
We had five different readings from scripture
listening to all the different stories of God’s reaching out to us
over the many, many years, thousands of years;
God is trying to reach out to us.
This is what we do when we come to Church.
We have symbols and storytelling.
The message is always singular
even though we tell it in a million different ways.
The message is the Resurrection, the Resurrection is real.
And the message fundamentally is that God has the last word;
and it is the Resurrection.
The Resurrection is the noun and love is the verb.
In other words, death is conquered by love.
The risen Jesus is not so much a reward for a life well done
as much as it is the completion of the fullness of life.
He is the pioneer, the perfector of the way of life.
He is the pledge and the guarantor of the pledge
to where we ourselves will go.
Every one of us will go this way.
That is the invitation for us;
that we will take this journey to its complete end;
that death is not the last word.
The devil does not have the last word.
God has the last word, and it is the Resurrection.
Love conquers death.
That is the fundamental core of our faith:
Love conquers death.
If that be the core of our faith,
then how are we meant to live that?
What does that look like?
We all come here together from different parts of the country,
different parts of the world in fact.
We come here to celebrate and we want to live that.
Here is what we are called to do.
We are called to live the Resurrection in the crucified moments.
That is what we are called to do;
live through those crucified moments and
to live the Resurrection in the crucified moments.
What does that mean for us?
Here is what I suggest it means:
Love never dies.
If death is beaten by love, then love always wins. Right?
Let me give you an example, let’s talk through this.
Imagine somebody whom you love right now
and that when they are traveling out of town,
let’s say they are in Boston or on the east coast,
do you still love them?
Do you feel their love for you when they are in Boston
on the other side of the country?
The answer obviously is yes.
And sometimes, maybe even more
because you are thinking of them more
because they are on the other side of the country.
In other words, you do not need to see them in person
to feel their love. Right?
You would agree on that? Right?
You are all agreed that we do not need them in person
to feel that their love is real.
That is true for all eternity
When they are out of our presence, as in when they have died,
then their love remains with us.
And we feel that love maybe even all the more
when they have gone but it requires of us to enter into that love.
It requires of us to hold onto that love
and to continue to love in return.
That is the final destiny. Right?
We do not get to the Resurrection without dying.
That is the reality.
Every one of us is going to have to die
before we get the Resurrection.
But here is the thing,
if we could live the crucified moments now
with the Resurrection mindset
then we get to live eternity right now.
We get to live that love for real now.
What does that look like?
What are some of the crucified moments?
Let’s think about it in our personal life
and the times when we have failed in something;
the times when we did not get what we desired or wanted
or maybe we felt we deserved a promotion,
or we lost that girlfriend or boyfriend
who we thought would be the chosen one;
or maybe our marriage is in difficult times
and we are in the middle of mourning a loss;
or maybe our marriage is actually broken.
We have these crucified moments.
The question then is what are we to do with those?
We can live the Resurrection in them.
We can practice our dying and rising right here by loving.
That is the key that opens the empty tomb.
It is that love that changes those moments.
What are the other moments?
In our wider community life,
when things go wrong in our community
when we are at war and division.
Right across the world.
We see this today.
What are we to do in the midst of racism; of war; of bigotry?
What are we to do when people are unjust to one another?
We are called to love.
We are called to insert love; as St. John of the Cross says
“Where you do not find love,
put love; and you will draw out love.”
The key to the Resurrection is love.
We put love where we do not receive it. Why?
Because that is what we do as Christians.
And we will eventually draw out love,
if not in this life in eternal life. Why?
Because love does not die.
Love is the last word.
The Resurrection is the last word.
We will continue to live forever
with that in our minds and in our hearts.
We are called to live the Resurrection in our crucified moments.
Think of every single moment of weakness and brokenness in our own lives
whether it is for ourselves or when it happens to us;
or whether it is happening to our world,
we are called to put love.
We are called where there is bitterness
and anger and unforgiveness and hatred and sin,
we are called to absorb that in, transform it
and give back kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, love.
That is how we live the Resurrection.
That is why we come to the Church;
to receive Christ, to have the strength to do that
in all the little moments when we are crucified.
We can become the living Resurrection today.
That, my friends, is how we celebrate the Easter message.
God has the last word.
His last word is love.
His last word is the Resurrection.
“He saw and he believed.”
