Easter Sunday - Homily 1

Homily 1 – 2005

You are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  Crucified – why? - because he spoke of a society, culture, religion, where people interacted on the basis of mutual respect, care, compassion, trust, welcome and love – in freedom – because they are loved essentially by God.  In Jesus’ day such a message was subversive.  Social, cultural and religious interactions were based on coercive power, relative wealth, class distinction, clout.  Not unlike our present world!

Jesus’ difference aroused violence - violence is always simmering close to the surface in the human herd, and is quickly contagious.  They eliminated him.  Even traditional enemies colluded in his execution, the powerful and the powerless.  Crucifixion seemed quite an effective final solution.

Jesus had been different alright.  His opposition to oppression, injustice and violence had been different too.  Not just from entrenched interests but from most opponents of entrenched interests: He had opposed oppression clearly and determinedly but without hatred, violence or exclusion.  

He was different not only in life, but different in death, too.  He had approached the incredible violence of crucifixion not as helpless victim, but freely - with eyes wide open – as the price of believing in and acting consistently with respect, compassion, trust,  forgiveness, welcome and love.

Yet on the Sunday morning, the few faithful ones, a group of women, went looking for Jesus, the one people had once and for all crucified.  He wasn’t there! He was different too in the aftermath of death.  The angel, the voice that leads us into mystery – proclaimed: he is risen.  Not risen and removed, not risen and detached, but risen and in Galilee.  He will meet you back in Galilee, the heartland, where you are at home.  And you will see him, and you will see him with clarity, and his Spirit will transform your spirit and your hearts will burn with the same vision, the same commitment, the same courage.

He has risen! What does that mean? Not like Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter: brought back to life, to business a usual.  Because he has risen (full stop!), he can rise again in me, in you, in even the hardest heart.  We can catch his Spirit.  We can commune with him – friends united in a common vision and a common mission, with a common energy .

As Paul said in tonight’s second reading: You must consider yourselves alive for God in Christ Jesus.  In Christ Jesus! Alive in Christ Jesus! That’s Easter!