Category Archives: Easter Sunday

The abandoned burial cloths

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by in Easter Sunday, Uncategorized

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empty_tombAt the end of Luke’s gospel (Lk. 24:1-12), once the women had shared with the disciples what had occurred at the tomb, we are told that Peter runs to the tomb and upon arriving he bends down and sees “the burial cloths alone”. It seems an almost inconsequential thing.  The main fact is the empty tomb, right?  The burial cloths are just an after-thought one might think.  John, in his gospel, is even more precise – the burial cloths are also noted but then John shares that the cloth used to cover the head of Christ was rolled up in a separate place.

In the eleventh chapter of John’s gospel we find the story of the raising of Lazarus. Jesus arrives at the tomb of his friend who has now been dead for four days.  Jesus commands that the stone be removed and then he cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” John 11:44 reads this way; “The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his head wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”  

Lazarus emerges from the tomb still wrapped in the cloths of death because he is raised back to a life that is still bound by mortality. He will one day die again.  In the empty tomb of Christ, the burial cloths have been left behind because Christ has been raised to newness of life.  He who once was dead now lives forever!  Death no longer has power over him!

Our God is a God of life and not of death. Guided by the Spirit we can now read this throughout salvation history.  God created everything and all life out of the sheer gratuity and abundance of his love.  God looks upon his creation and proclaims it to be good!  When the people of Israel were enslaved God heard their cry.  God freed them from their slavery and led them into the new life of their own land and their covenant with him.  The prophets, again and again, call the people back to true life that can only be found in relationship with God.  Even when the people profaned the covenant and the very name of God, God promises that he will restore them and cleanse them for the sake of his own holy name.  God cannot be other than God.  John tells us that “God is love” and Pope Francis asks us all to recognize this holy year that the name of God is mercy.

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God promises that not only will he cleanse us outwardly but, even more so, that he will give us a new heart and a new spirit and that he will take from us our stony hearts and give us natural hearts.

In the empty tomb of Christ, with the burial cloths discarded and left behind, God removes our stony hearts. In the very place of death and decay, God gives us a new heart and a new spirit!  Our God is a God of life and not death.

The new heart and new spirit of the Christian flows from the empty tomb of Christ and this new heart has already begun beating! Our resurrection to new life has already begun.  St. Paul (and all the saints by their very lives) remind us that through our baptisms we have died with Christ in order to rise to newness of life with him.  We now live for God in Christ Jesus!

In Christ, the tomb is emptied and the cloths of burial are left behind. Now, we, in Christ, can leave behind the life-denying cloths that bind us and all of humanity – the burial cloths of sin, violence, arrogance, egocentrism, injustice, isolation and fear.  In Christ, we have risen to newness of life!  In Christ, we can live again for one another and for God!  Death is not the final word!  Newness of life in Christ flows out of the empty and defeated tomb.

The tomb is emptied. The cloths that bind are left behind.  Christ is risen!  We are given a new heart and we can now live in newness of life!

Easter Sunday concluded … now what?

01 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in culture of fear., Easter Sunday, mission, resurrection

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It is now the quiet time…  The Triduum services are completed.  The Easter Vigil (the “mother” of all vigils) has been concluded for another year – to varying degrees of liturgical success in each individual parish I am sure.  The crowds that seem to magically appear and arrive for Easter Sunday Mass have come and gone.  Candidates and catechumens have been received into the Church.  Easter Egg hunts are wrapped up as well as family Easter gatherings.  Now what?

Is Easter Sunday, 2013 to now be shelved away as a nice memory testified to by photos posted on facebook?  An opportunity for people to dress up and have good family time?  Does the message of Easter end with the last Easter Sunday Mass?  Liturgically the Church says “no”.  We have the Easter Season – a needed time to reflect on the truth of the resurrection and to look to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  “Liturgical” here is important and it does certainly influence who we are but here I am specifically wondering about our day-to-day life outside the parish walls.  Does Easter affect and shape who we are or does it remain a beautiful annual ritual that is left behind in the crowded Easter Sunday church parking-lot?  Do we take Easter with us into the streets of our lives and of our world or do we keep it hidden away behind locked doors – doors of a private faith, spirituality and morality, doors of our resignations and sense of hopelessness in the face of the pain of our world, doors of our fear to offend the accepted norm. 

Easter cannot stay hidden away.  Easter demands that we go into the streets – no matter how uncomfortable it makes us or others. 

In Matthew’s account of the resurrection there is an interesting instruction that is given to the women who came to the tomb early that morning by the angel sitting on top of the rolled-away heavy stone that had been used to seal the tomb.  “…go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.” (Mt. 28:7) 

The resurrected Lord does not fear the world and its violence and sad resignation because he has overcome all the sin of the world through the love of the Father.  The resurrected Lord goes before you to Galilee.  He goes into the streets of the world and the expectation and instruction given by the angel of the resurrection is that the followers of Christ do the same! 

Easter, if it is to be authentic and be more than a nice memory, cannot stay hidden behind any locked door and neither will it allow us to remain hidden.

There is a culture of fear that continually whispers to us that nothing can change, that we cannot really do anything in the face of the injustice of our world, that we should look upon ourselves and our world with hopeless eyes.  The culture of fear is arrogant in its pride and thinks that it alone has words to speak.  The culture of fear lies.  The culture of fear would convince us that we are its children. 

We are not children of the culture of fear.  We are children of the resurrection!  We are sons and daughters of God!  We have nothing to fear and we have words, new words to speak to our world and to one another!  The angel announces that the risen Lord is going to Galilee and that there the disciples will see him.  The implication is more than apparent, the disciples are meant to go and meet the Lord who goes ahead of them.  (The Lord always goes ahead of us.)  They are meant to go out into the street and carry the truth of the resurrection into the world! 

It is not enough to stay behind locked doors, no matter how pretty and gilded those doors may be and no matter how many other people may also be content to remain there also.  If we do so then the culture of fear wins and our lives become exceedingly small, constrained and life-denying.  Joy is found only in following the risen Lord to wherever he might lead.

One further thought: there is no time to waste.  The angel instructs the women: go quickly.  We are each allotted only a certain number of Easters in our lives here on earth.  There is no time to lose, both for the work needing to be done in our own hearts as well as the work needing to be done in our world.  In the light of the resurrection we must make use of every moment given to us.  When all is said and done, we will each have to give an accounting of how we have lived the Easters we have been given in our lifetime. 

We are sons and daughters of the resurrection of our Lord!  The Easter mystery is placed in our hearts and entrusted to us and it cannot remain behind locked doors, it demands to be taken out to the streets of our world!