April 1, 2018
The Church’s liturgy is decorated with variety of feasts and solemnities. The Easter celebration is one of them but it has a central position among the other celebrations. At the Easter vigil Christians all over the globe gathered at their churches to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord invoking all powers and ends of the earth to rejoice in these words: Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven, exult, let Angel ministers of God exult, let the trumpet of salvation sound aloud our mighty King’s triumph! Be glad and let earth be glad, as glory floods her…… On this Easter morning we have gathered to declare with joy, Christ is risen! Alleluia. The catechism of the catholic church says: The resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community: handed on as fundamental by tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament and preached as essential part of the paschal mystery along with the cross: Christ is risen from the dead! Dying, he conquered death; To the dead, he has given life. (CCC. 489). The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified. One of those manifestations is the Empty tomb. This was one of the astonishing discoveries made by the women at the early morning of the third day as they went out of love to anoint his body. They met his grave empty. The absence of Christ’s body from the tomb may not be a direct proof of resurrection nonetheless it is an essential sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the resurrection. There are many other manifestations which we would be hearing in readings within the Eastertide. To understand the full meaning of the resurrection we need to look back to the Old Testament. In fact everything in the old covenant was but a pictorial prefiguring of what God was going to do in the resurrection of His son, Jesus. The resurrection is a re-cast of the Genesis account of creation- “coming into being”. In the word’s of St. Paul it is the resurrection of the last Adam (1 cor. 15:45). Here God breathed his life giving Spirit into man again (cf. Gen.2:7). Mankind is re-created in spiritual regeneration, becoming a new creature (2Cor.5:11; Gal.6:15) Resurrection recaptures the Exodus story- bringing mankind out of the land of slavery into the Promised Land. Mankind held in the bondage of Sin and death is brought back to life of freedom in Holiness. Christ’s coming out of the grave corresponds to Moses and his people coming out of Egypt, wherein the resurrection becomes the liberating exodus of salvation history. The reading of Exodus story is one of the principal readings at Easter vigil’s liturgy. The resurrection restructures the Torah. With the resurrection the external codification of the Law becomes an internal dynamic of life- the law written in the heart. This is foreshadowed in the prophesy of Jeremiah (Jer.31:31-34) In the New Testament, it is the central story and the climax of all the gospel narratives. Jesus kept talking about this event in his life. He declared to Martha I AM the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). To the Jews in the temple he foretold that the temple of His body would be destroyed, but raised in three days (John 6:19-22), indicating that by His resurrection the new center of worship would be in Him. He becomes the New Temple of Humanity whose worshipers must do so in Spirit and truth. Christianity is not a message of merely what has been (past) and will be (future), it is the message of what is,- the vital dynamic of the risen Lord in our midst. It is the restoration of humanity whereby God functions once again in human history. It is the focal point of all human history. It is the transforming reality in light of which everything else must be interpreted. All meaningful human existence must be interpreted by this earth-shattering, death-defeating reality of Jesus’ resurrection. He has risen as he promised and he lives in our midst. His presence symbolized with the paschal candle radiates in the world. We look us to his light to guide us. With his resurrection you are made a new creation, because we died with him we have resurrected with him. This very fact is based on our baptism. That means you and I are “re-created beings” in Christ. We are the new creation. The old has passed away. In his homily on Easter Vigil in 2006 Pope (emeritus) Benedict XVI says “The resurrection is not a thing of the past, the resurrection has reached us, and seized us. We grasp hold of it, we grasp hold of the risen Lord and we know that he holds us firmly even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand thus we hold on to one another’s hands. And we become one single subject not just one thing. I; but no longer I, this is the formula of Christian life rooted in baptism, the formula of the resurrection within time: I but no longer I. If we live in this way, we transform the world. It is a formula contrary to all ideologies of violence, it is a program opposed to corruption and to the desire for power and corruption. With the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord we declare that death has not the last word over us, we declare that wars and destruction of human resources have not the last word, suffering, hunger and sickness have not the last word, quarrels and disunity have not the last word, darkness has not the last word. The end story of lives is Glory. With faith we hold on to this truth. Alleluia!
Fr Sylvester Ajunwa