On behalf of Msgr. Callahan, Fr. Post, the deacons, the parish staff, and myself, let me wish you all a very holy and happy Easter. I hope that all of you will experience joy with family and friends on this day where we celebrate the Lord Jesus’ victory over sin and death!
As some of you may remember from earlier homilies, I have a strong love for tools: power tools, hand tools, yard tools, it doesn’t really matter, I enjoy them all. This fascination with tools started at a young age. It was fostered by a kind retiree who lived next door to us growing up. This man had nearly every tool you could think of for every sort of repair. They were all perfectly cared for and organized on several workbenches in his basement and he was always happy to show me how to use them properly. He would teach me how to care for each tool and use it safely, supervising my projects from beginning to end. As time went on and he realized that my interest in woodworking and home-repair was genuine, he would “lend” me a tool or two for projects that I was working on. After several years and many visits to his workbench, he honored me a great deal by giving me some of the tools that he had used over the years.
Even as a young person, the gift of these tools was very meaningful to me. I knew how special his tools were to him, the time and sacrifice he had spent in acquiring them and the fact that he actually gave some of them to me was no small sacrifice. I also knew that it was a statement of trust that he was making in me; something precious was now handed on to me to care for and use properly. As I continued to use these tools many years later, I was always reminded of this man’s generosity and tried to honor him by caring for them properly. I tried to emulate the skills and techniques that he himself had spent time refining over many years.
While I know it is a somewhat weak analogy, I feel this experience resonates in a small way with what we celebrate today with Easter. God our Father, infinitely wise and loving, shares with us what is most precious to him. He shares, not some material object, but his very own life. Even when we treated this gift poorly and lost it through sin, he did not give up on us. Instead of pulling away from us, as we deserved, what does he do? How does he love us? He sends his own beloved Son, to become man, and to suffer and die for the sins of the human race. I think it is important for us to remember that God did not do this for his own benefit. He did it so that you and I might be set free from the slavery of sin and death. This divine sharing, which St. Athanasius beautifully described as God becoming man so man might become divine, well, this gift is a mystery that can never be exhausted.
On this Easter Sunday, where we get together with family and friends and enjoy good food, beautiful weather and the joyful turning of a new season, it might be easy to stay simply on the natural, sentimental level and not go any deeper. But we ought to remember the more important reason that unites us all. It is because of the resurrection that we are here today. If Christ had not risen from the dead, the disciples would not have had the courage or boldness to say another word about Jesus in public, let alone to claim that He rose and is Lord of the living and the dead.
Brother and Sisters in faith - The resurrection is the pinnacle of what we believe in as Christians. It is the center of our faith, it is the foundation of our Christian experience,
and it is the goal towards which we direct our lives. The resurrection should be of first importance to us, not because it is a nice ending to the story of Jesus, but because it is the beginning of our story, a story in which our faith can triumph over death just as did the faith of Jesus.
As Christians we are urged over and over again to trust in and accept the reality of the resurrection and to make it a part of our lives through faith in the one who rose from the dead. We are a people who are called to believe in the power and the love that it shows -- to believe in the power and love of God to bring goodness out of evil; life out of death; and hope out of despair.
As Christians we are called to trust and believe in this way. Our Lord makes a promise to us that when we believe in the power and love of God, a power and love so deep it can raise the dead to life, then our lives will be blest, and we in turn will become a blessing to others.
We are promised that what we believe will make a difference to us and it certainly does. If we put the resurrection at the center of our lives of faith, we can trust that we will participate in the glory of Christ’s victory over death. If we allow the resurrection to be a part of our daily prayer, especially in the next 50 days, and not just an event that occurs once a year, we can be sure that we will enjoy a new power over sin and death. Easter Sunday reminds us that we have been given a gift beyond all price, the privilege of participating in the very life of God himself. During this joyful season we ought to ask ourselves how well we are using that gift.
Today is Easter Sunday; rejoice and be glad, fellow Christians, our savior is risen. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!
