On Good Friday, we commemorate the suffering and death of Jesus on the Cross to save us from sin and death. But Good Friday is not the end. On Easter Sunday, we celebrate how God raised Jesus from the dead to a new life of love, peace and hope, opening our path to life eternal with Him in heaven.
In this greatest of all events of Good Friday-Easter Sunday and likewise in each event of our life, big or small, what is ever certain, is the loving and concerned hand of God being always active in our life. He loves each one of us, is involved in the life of each of us, is working for the happiness of each, whether good or bad. Often we do not realise it. Yet God is telling each of us, “Can a mother forget her baby or the child within her womb? Yet even if she forgets, I will never forget you, my own, because I have written your name on the palm of my hand”.
In and through the event of resurrection, our loving and concerned God is pointing at many things in our everyday life. But before that, can we believe in the reality of resurrection? Yes, we can believe, because we have so many reasons before us. Resurrection of Jesus was a sign that Jesus came from God and God raised him up from the dead. Jesus himself testified to it, “Tear down this temple and in three days I will build it again” (John 2: 19).
The tomb of Jesus was empty on Easter Sunday. The guards claimed that the disciples of Jesus had stolen the body, but it was impossible for the terrified disciples to do so facing the might of the leaders and soldiers. The angel said to the women at Jesus’ tomb, “Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive? He is not here: he has been raised (Luke 24:3-6).”
The disciples did not believe at first that Jesus is risen. But after Jesus appeared to many and even unbelieving Thomas placing his fingers in the marks of the nails of Jesus and God slowly working in their hearts and transforming them, that the disciples slowly believed in the work of God. The disciples who were so fearful became very confident and bold and, went out to preach the message of Jesus.
“Easter” literally means “the feast of fresh flowers”. Fresh flowers signify new life and hope. In other words it is celebrating humankind’s eternal hope in the new and everlasting life beyond. Hope that death is not the final word but the life beyond with God is the final destination. Easter is triumph of life over death, sin, suffering which happens to Jesus in his resurrection. So, Easter gives us encouragement and strength to overcome trials and suffering in this life with a view to happiness in the next life. That is the significance of the resurrection. In this world of pain, sorrow and hopelessness represented by darkness, Easter reminds us that life is worth living because life is lived in the service of God, God who is Light. So, Easter leads us from darkness to light, from death to life immortal.
In his resurrection, Jesus has become our hope and guide for the new life beyond. Therefore, our life is to be like his life. Like him we too shall rise from the dead on the last day.
“Peace be with you!” is God’s salutation to us in all situations of life. For us, every day must be an Easter Day, lived joyfully in the close company of our God of peace and joy.
We need to be aware of the all-pervading, loving presence of God in and around us, and the strong conviction of our own rising to a new life.
The message of Easter is that nothing can destroy us — not pain, sin, rejection or death — because God has conquered all these, and we too can conquer these if we put our Faith in our God of Good Friday-Easter Sunday.
We are to be bearers of the Good News of the power of Resurrection. Resurrection is about seeing our world in a new way. Early that Easter morning, Mary Magdalene did not find what she was looking for, the dead body of Jesus. But she found something better than she could have imagined: the Risen Jesus. Sometimes, the things we think we want most are not granted to us. What we get instead is an experience of God's new ways of working in our life and in the world. That’s the power of the Resurrection. When those moments come, we must spread the news--just as Mary Magdalene did: We have seen the Lord!
We need to be Easter people. We are in truth called to be an “Easter people”, because there are many Easter moments in our lives. It may be in prayer, when for a moment we really experience the love of God, especially having felt his absence, as we often do, like the disciples who experienced the emptiness of the tomb. It may be that moment when we are touched and given hope by a word of God — our hearts uplifted.
We are to be messengers of hope. Hope in future keeps us going through our sufferings and trying days. Raising Jesus from the dead, God has given us hope, that there will be difficult times in our life, there will be death like situations but that is not the end, as God is our hope in darkness.
We need to be messengers of peace. We think peace means absence of any problem and difficulties. But can we do away with those in modern day life of struggle? Then we have to live in the graveyard where there is perfect peace but no life. But we are in real life and so have to face and overcome adverse situations, trusting in God. Then only we shall experience real deep peace, which comes only from God, which no one else can give or take away. We cannot have our own peace and peace in the world just like that but we all have to make sincere and serious efforts for that.
In conclusion, in this season of spring, as we look around, we experience newness in nature. New Life is smiling all around us. New leaves sprouting, new flowers blossoming, new butterflies floating, new birds chirping and children smiling anew! But before these happened, there was death of the leaves, plants, caterpillars. Jesus too died on the cross but God raised him to a life of newness, new in all ways. So also, touched and transformed by Easter, we must die to our selfishness and shortcomings and be renewed in our body, mind, heart and soul, becoming new creations of God. That is, we are slowly becoming the Easter people of Love, Peace and Hope. That is the gift of Easter for each of us.
It is gift yes, but at the same time it is also the task and challenge of Easter, that in our turn we make everything new and bring newness all around us, shedding our selfishness and being inspiration to others to shed their selfishness and shortcomings. As at all moments God is making us new, transforming us into his image and likeness, so also must we work with God to make his creation and people and everything around us ever new.
Rev Fr. Dr. Dominic Savio SJ, Principal, St Xavier’s College (Autonomous)
