The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary for Easter Sunday, The Resurrection of the Lord, invite us to contemplate the consequences to society today of the Risen Christ.
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The Reading from the Book of Acts presents Peter’s Speech sharing the core teaching about the life of Christ.
* [10:36–43] These words are more directed to Luke’s Christian readers than to the household of Cornelius, as indicated by the opening words, “You know.” They trace the continuity between the preaching and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and the proclamation of Jesus by the early community. The emphasis on this divinely ordained continuity (Acts 10:41) is meant to assure Luke’s readers of the fidelity of Christian tradition to the words and deeds of Jesus.1
Through the thanksgiving of Psalm 118 we understand that what is insignificant to human beings has become great through divine election.
* [118:22] The stone the builders rejected: a proverb: what is insignificant to human beings has become great through divine election. The “stone” may originally have meant the foundation stone or capstone of the Temple. The New Testament interpreted the verse as referring to the death and resurrection of Christ (Mt 21:42; Acts 4:11; cf. Is 28:16 and Rom 9:33; 1 Pt 2:7).2
The passage from the Letter of Paul to the Colossians connects Jesus Mystical Death and Resurrection to our attitude in Life.
* [3:1–4] By retaining the message of the gospel that the risen, living Christ is the source of their salvation, the Colossians will be free from false religious evaluations of the things of the world (Col 3:1–2). They have died to these; but one day when Christ…appears, they will live with Christ in the presence of God (Col 3:3–4)3
The longer passage (chosen by the CCCB) from the Gospel. (John 20.1-18) describes Peter and John running to The Empty Tomb and The Appearance to Mary of Magdala of Jesus in the garden.
* [20:6–8] Some special feature about the state of the burial cloths caused the beloved disciple to believe. Perhaps the details emphasized that the grave had not been robbed.4
Luis Rodriguez, S.J. shares that the witnessing of the apostles needed to be enabled by a twofold support: love and faith.
The same is also clear in today’s gospel reading. Love is alive enough for both disciples to run to the tomb, but their faith had been crushed and finding that the tomb was indeed empty meant nothing to Peter. The beloved disciple’s faith had also been shaken, but his love led him to ponder and remember the words of Jesus. It was this love that awaken his faith. We need both love and faith. We know that faith is gift, but loving God and loving others can awaken in us the gift of faith.5
Don Schwager quotes “The Womb of the Earth Gives Birth,” by Hesychius of Jerusalem, a priest and a Scripture scholar who worked with Jerome and Cyril of Jerusalem. He wrote a commentary on the whole Bible. He died around 450 AD.
"Hidden first in a womb of flesh, he sanctified human birth by his own birth. Hidden afterward in the womb of the earth, he gave life to the dead by his resurrection. Suffering, pain and sighs have now fled away. For who has known the mind of God, or who has been his counselor if not the Word made flesh who was nailed to the cross, who rose from the dead and who was taken up into heaven? This day brings a message of joy: it is the day of the Lord's resurrection when, with himself, he raised up the race of Adam. Born for the sake of human beings, he rose from the dead with them. On this day paradise is opened by the risen one, Adam is restored to life and Eve is consoled. On this day the divine call is heard, the kingdom is prepared, we are saved and Christ is adored. On this day, when he had trampled death under foot, made the tyrant a prisoner and despoiled the underworld, Christ ascended into heaven as a king in victory, as a ruler in glory, as an invincible charioteer. He said to the Father, 'Here am I, O God, with the children you have given me.' And he heard the Father’s reply, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool' (Psalm 110:1)." To him be glory, now and for ever, through endless ages. Amen. [excerpt from EASTER HOMILY 5–6]6
The Word Among Us Meditation on John 20:1-9 comments that today’s Gospel tells us that Peter and John ran to the tomb on Easter Sunday, once Mary Magdalene told them that Jesus’ body was missing.
When Peter and John ran to the tomb, their hearts were filled with hope. On this Easter Sunday, let’s also place our hope in the One who “is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). When we run to Jesus, we will find him. He has risen. He is alive. He wants to help us just as much as he helped all those people who ran to him.
“Lord, I believe that you have risen. Thank you for calling me to your side!”7
The bursting forth of a new world on #Easter morning breaks the walls of the tomb we build for ourselves and opens our horizons, writes David Neuhaus SJ: ‘resurrection renews hope’. https://t.co/A88JvHNnvH #ThinkingFaith #hope #nowreading #ThinkingFaith— Thinking Faith (@ThinkingFaith) April 21, 2019
Fr David M. Neuhaus SJ, Latin Patriarchal Vicar within the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, writes that it is the word ‘horizon’ that distinguishes the old world from the new. Whereas the old world is suffocating, dark and often hopeless, provoking anxiety and sadness, the new world is one in which horizons are open, flooded with light and joy, evoking hope. Death is the reality of the old world, a reality where the horizon is blocked; and resurrection is the reality of the new, where the horizon stretches to where heaven and earth touch.
The old world is often our world, a world that encourages apathy in the face of the misery produced by our greed. As we shut the door in the face of our brothers and sisters who clamour for our solidarity and assistance, we sink into the tomb. As we watch unmoved as millions flee their homes because of hunger and war, petrifying our hearts with suspicion and refusal, we adopt the constitution of an old world that crucified Jesus. As we comfortably mouth a language that divides the world into ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’, we betray a gospel that preaches love and pardon. And so we sink into a hopelessness that proposes the walls we build around ourselves in brick and word, in violence and rejection. Resurrection renews hope. The walls crumble. In a Twitter message on 9 February 2017, Pope Francis proclaimed ‘Hope opens new horizons and enables us to dream of what is not even imaginable’. Hope enables us to quit the old world on Easter morning!8
Friar Jude Winkler comments on the kerygma given by Peter as witness to Jesus resurrection. The Songs of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah and the Song of Songs are invoked by the many symbols the Scripture passages today. Friar Jude exhorts us live in the “head over heels” love of the beloved disciple that propels us to the tomb winning the race against authority.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, notes the message of Eastern icons of the resurrection, sometimes called “The Harrowing of Hell,” … Jesus pulls Adam and Eve, symbols of all humanity, out of hell. This is a very different message that never made it to the Western Church, either Catholic or Protestant. Eastern imagery suggests a hopeful message that is not only about Jesus but about society, humanity, and history itself.
Brothers and sisters, if we don’t believe that every crucifixion—war, poverty, torture, hunger—can somehow be redeemed, who of us would not be angry, cynical, hopeless? No wonder Western culture seems so skeptical today. It all doesn’t mean anything, it’s not going anywhere, because we weren’t given a wider and cosmic vision of Jesus’ resurrection. Easter is not just the final chapter of Jesus’ life, but the final chapter of history. Death does not have the last word.
Christ is not just pulling Adam and Eve out of hell. He’s pulling creation out of hell. Christ destroys death. We sing that in our songs and read it in our Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15), but for many Christians it seems to be “pretend.” For most of the past 2,000 years, the West tended to threaten us with death and hell: “If you don’t do it right, you’re going to hell.” Within many Eastern Orthodox churches, we see Jesus literally pulling people out of hell. Christ is the overcoming of hell and death in a very real, promised way. That’s what we’re celebrating today.9
The truth and the message of Easter is presented to us for contemplation in the Spirit so that the witness of apostles and the symbols in Scripture open our vision to a horizon of new life.
References
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(n.d.). Psalms, chapter 118 - usccb. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/118
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(n.d.). Colossians, chapter 3 - usccb. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/colossians/3
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(n.d.). John, chapter 20 - usccb. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john20:41
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(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections - OnlineMinistries - Creighton University. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
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(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
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(n.d.). Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord - Mass Readings and .... Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/2019/04/21/
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(2017, April 20). Choose life: horizons beyond the tomb walls | Thinking Faith: The .... Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/choose-life-horizons-beyond-tomb-walls
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(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive: April 2019 - Daily Meditations Archives .... Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/04/
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