Great Sunday

Easter Sunday

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040526.cfm

Good morning and Happy Easter.

The whole world, it seems, celebrates Christmas, even non-Christians and atheists. In the lead-up to December 25th, Christmas songs, decorations, trees, and Santa Claus are inescapable.  And the whole world stops for Christmas.  In our country, schools and many workplaces offer extended breaks for the holiday season, and there is a strong cultural expectation to be home for Christmas with family and loved ones.

Easter, on the other hand, is easy to miss.  A few weeks ago, Kroger put out chocolate bunnies, egg-dyeing kits, Peeps, and jelly beans.  That may have led shoppers to ask themselves, “When is that coming up again?” The calendar certainly doesn’t help: Easter can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25—a 35-day period. 

Jesus’ resurrection happened during the Jewish celebration of Passover, and the Church has always kept Easter during the same period.   But the Jewish calendar is lunar (Easter is always on the Sunday after the first full moon in the Spring).  Since we are more attuned to our standard monthly calendar than to the phases of the moon, Easter is, again, easy to miss.  

Most of us are lucky to get a day off tomorrow.  The high school where I teach is off all week, but Easter is literally an afterthought in my students’ minds.  It is Spring Break first and foremost.  That doesn’t mean church or Easter egg hunts.  

From a Christian perspective, not a secular and consumerist one, there are good reasons for Christmas to be popular—it is the day that God became incarnate as a human being.  But Christmas is a distant second in importance to the three-day liturgy that began on the night of Holy Thursday and culminates today on the morning of Easter Sunday.  These three days are the most important days in history, not only in human history, but in cosmic history.

Like Mary of Magdala, who came to the tomb so early in the morning that it was still dark on the first day of the week, and like Peter, we may be slow to understand the meaning of the stone that was rolled away from the tomb, and the burial garments that were rolled up.  

Jesus has risen.  He has returned from the dead not as an animated corpse or a dying man who was miraculously cured before his death, and not as a ghost who has thrown off his body and become radiant and incorporeal like an angel.  No, he has risen with a transformed and glorified body that is in some ways like ours. 

Over the next 50 days of the Easter season, the stories of the Risen Christ will slowly reveal the mystery of the resurrection.  Our Risen Lord eats and drinks, touches and is touched. He breathes.  And the wounds he received at his crucifixion remain.  And yet, he has changed—he can appear in rooms behind locked doors and can disappear from sight.  He is not always immediately recognized by people who know him.  And he can no longer die or be hurt.  

Why is this important for us? For two reasons, first, because the resurrection that Jesus experienced is also promised to us. Jesus has defeated death through his cross and resurrection, and he has begun to transform us, too.  We are becoming like him.   

 

 Secondly, Jesus is transforming not just the human race, but the entire cosmos.   On Easter Sunday, eternity began to break into our world, renewing all things, mending what is broken, casting out what is evil, and becoming, as Scripture says, “all in all.”  E

 The Easter season is 50 days long.  The number seven symbolized perfection to our ancestors.  What could be more perfect than seven weeks—49 days plus a final extra Sunday.  That bonus day was called the Eighth Day, the day of resurrection that represented a preview of eternity.  All 50 days of this season are known together as the “Great Sunday,” and we are challenged to keep the joy alive.  

Here are a few suggestions for you on ways to do that: read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and the events that followed.  Also recommended are the Acts of the Apostles, which describe the early Church, and Revelation, which is a mystical description of the world to come.  You will hear these readings at mass on the Sundays of the season.  Second, decorate your home with white lights and fresh flowers, and get in the garden or out in nature.  

Third, throw a party or two. We are really good at spending Christmas with friends and family.  The Easter season is a perfect time to celebrate and feast with the people we love.  

On this Eighth Day of Creation, this Great Sunday, may God bless you and fill you with the joy of the Resurrection.  Christ is Risen.  He is truly risen.  Alleluia.