He saw and believed…

Do you believe? Today, Easter Sunday, 2.4 billion Christians which make up about 30% of world’s population, claim to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We claim to trust the written testimony of people who lived two thousand years ago, that what they saw; be it the risen Christ himself appearing to them on the way to Emmaus, or in the upper room while locked hiding in fear, or not even that, but simply seeing the empty tomb, the burial cloths unraveled, we say that that is enough for us, centuries later, to say: yes, we believe the Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that that is true.

 We say this while living in a time in human history where believe in God is optional, where the advances of science and technology seem to offer new forms of assurance and answers to life’s big questions in a way that is quantifiable. We don’t have to simply believe others and take them by their word, they can show you the evidence here and now. Many argue that science offers us in a real way what faith and religion tried to do, answers to life, actual and provable truth, so now that we have it, we can do away with the old.

Many have taken this route, but in the midst of an increasingly secular world that seeks only one form of truth, Christianity continues to claim the truth is not one dimensional, not bound to the mere physical, that there is a divine truth, a spiritual truth, a truth that guides human history in a way that science alone cannot and will never be sufficient enough for our full human development, and over the last couple of years, after years of bad news of people leaving faith, leaving the Church, we are now starting to see a surge of a new generation of people who have realized the power and truth of faith and the necessity of this guiding truth in their lives.

 I shared with the newly baptized at the easter vigil last night about the current news of the sudden surge of adults seeking baptism and sacraments this year happening around the world. In Australia, 240 adults were baptized last night compared to 130 last year. In Belgium, 536 adults were baptized compared to 362 last year. In secular France, a record 17,800 adults where baptized, including 7,400 teenagers. Clearly there is a truth still active and moving people to say yes, I believe, God’s power is present in the world and all we need to do is witness the effects. That is faith. Faith is not simply believing what we cannot see or blindly trusting what someone said thousands of years ago. Faith is witnessing the effects of God’s power in the world here and now which continues to move and transform us. In a way that is the process of evolution, the movement of the world towards becoming more complex, more complete, whole.

As Christians we can hold that evolution is the journey God has set for us to discover the image in which we were created. It is the process by which we learn how to use the gifts we have received. It has guided human development to discover our capacity for rational thought and our capacity for love, and as the spirit of God has accompanied us on this journey, it is evolution itself that has led us towards the most important event in human history, the truth of the resurrection of Jesus.

This truth challenges the way that humanity first came to understand the world. I am going to ask you to remember a homily from back in October, from when we had the Day of the Dead Altar. I mentioned that all ancient human cultures saw the world as a three-layered reality consisting of heaven, earth and some kind of underworld, which gave us a simple way of understanding the world, but it also made the world frightening; afraid of God above, afraid of hell bellow. Humans lived in fear, and when we live in fear, we are not free, we resolve to hiding and acts of violence in order to protect ourselves.

 The day of the dead altar represented this world view. However, Jesus penetrates these 3 layered worlds in his movement which we profess every Sunday: Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, died and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. Remember that?

Ok now go to December, to the homily about the nativity scene which this year was in the form of a cave. I mentioned that there is a tradition that says Jesus was born in a cave because the cave represents everything that causes us fear, all sin, all lies, all failures, all doubt about God, all death. Jesus born in a cave was symbolic of what he would accomplish. That brings us to today, that scene is back this time as an empty tomb, and we proclaim that through his resurrection, he empties the tomb, meaning put an end to our fear and corrects our understanding of reality and gives us two truths of God: that God came into and lived a human life in Jesus Christ, that’s what we call the incarnation. And, that God entered into human suffering in Jesus Christ, that’s what we call the passion of Christ.

The resurrection brings these two things to a climax. First, the resurrection shows us that there is no tension between physical life and spiritual life. We don’t have to choose one truth for the other. Jesus who possesses the fullness of divine life, spiritual truth, lives a fully human life, physical truth, and rises physically from the dead – the spirit and body are one. Death is a reality, but so is eternal life.

Think of what that means for us and the consequences for the quality of our lives, we are made and destined for more than just this life.

People who live only at the physical level seek their own substitutes for eternal life, it is a desire too deep in our heart that God has placed there so that in our longing we might find him, joy. But because the heart is easily deceived, what we call sin, we are susceptible to seeking after eternal life following a pursuit of unending pleasure, mistaking joy for pleasure. We seek immediate gratification, seeking quantity over quality, keeping the Amazon and Teemu CEO’s billionaires.  The pursuit of unending pleasure leads to a life in which we have to buy more and watch more and consume more but we are never satisfied. It is an eternal life of consumption, and that is a dangerous life to live by.

 Unsatisfied, it leads to addictions, some which hurt the most vulnerable among us, our children, in the worst ways imaginable. It leads to endless competition, tariff wars as nations compete for economic growth. It leads to a culture of work where people live to work rather than work to contribute to society and live.

But our believe in the resurrection gives us more to live for. If the material and the spiritual are united, then they are working together for the good and unity of humanity. I must then not just live by my desires, but guided by my conscience. If the material and the spiritual are united, then I am willing to suffer, trusting that the spiritual truth of God’s power can transform my suffering into a source of love. When we are willing to suffer and place ourselves in solidarity with the suffering of others, we find ways to walk and work together rather than against each other.

I think that is why we use the word passion to describe what Jesus had to do, the Passion of the Crist. Passion is typically first seen as earthly, the desires of the flesh, it is centered on what I want for myself – give the body what it wants. Passion takes, often at the expense of making others suffer. But in the human life of Jesus, passion is transformed into giving, to suffer for the sake of others. In his passion, in his death on the cross, Jesus gives. He gives us proof of God’s love for us, that we do not have to run from God out of fear, that we don’t have to reject God out of anger, that God does not want to take away our freedom, rather through suffering he gives us freedom, and in freedom we can choose to be united.

Remember, that is the mission of the Church. The second Vatican council gave us a new definition of the church as sacraments of union with God and the unity of humanity. Despite the failure of human beings that make us fall short of that definition and making that a reality, the power of God is what moves us, corrects us, heals us, calls us back to repentance when we needed, and then calls us forward to mission.

 Family, we believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. We believe that the resurrection is not just a statement of faith, is a way of life through which we are made complete. Today we renew our baptism and our commitment to live this life and give evidence of the risen Lord by placing ourselves in solidarity with victims of injustice and not create victims ourselves. We give evidence of the risen Lord by overcoming hatred through forgiveness. I believe in the resurrection because the value and direction that it gives my life is tangible, evident. Today we profess that there is a truth guiding us, in the person of Jesus, he is our truth, our way, our life. We believe that he is present right here and now, in each one of us, the Church. I believe, because its effects are sitting right in front of me.

Fr. Carlos