Year A
Easter Sunday - Homily 2
Homily 2 – 2008
It’s a great story. The women came to the tomb; the dead man inside – apparently – the burly guards outside. The reality: there was no dead man inside, and outside, guards so shaken, so frightened, that they were like dead men.
Two women were the first to see the risen Jesus. They were the women, courageous enough, to have been present at his crucifixion, contemplative enough to visit the tomb as soon as they could. Unlike the male disciples, absent from the crucifixion, paralysed with fear and burdened with guilt.
And the risen Jesus said to the women: Greetings! - hardly does justice to the occasion. It seems so casual! Then he added: Go! be apostles to the ones who should have been apostles – and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee. They will see me there.
Tell my brothers. This is the only time in the whole Gospel that Jesus calls the disciples Brothers – and one of them had denied ever knowing him and the others had cleared out on him. Under pressure, cowardice had completely overwhelmed their love and loyalty. Tell my brothers to meet me.
The abandoned, betrayed, disowned and crucified Jesus said not a word of recrimination or blame or criticism. Just reconciliation – before ever a word even of sorrow or repentance on their part. Just the unadorned, spontaneous offer of friendship. That’s how he saved the world:
It’s possible to fail, to be authentic, to love, to forgive. Not only is it possible. It’s the only way, ultimately, to make human life really liveable. It’s not a command. It’s the revelation of a possibility.
If people would forgive (not excuse, but forgive) without recrimination, blame or criticism, there would eventually be no Palestinian conflict, no Iraq, no Kosovo, no Afghanistan. There would be nothing really to talk about on the TV news!
They killed him, but they could not stop him forgiving the world that killed him.
It sort of takes the point out of killing – eventually. With which thought, I wish you all a Happy Easter.