Easter Sunday – Year A
Acts 10:34a, 37-43 Colossians 3:1-4 [Or] 1st Corinthians 5:6b-8 John 20:1-9
Easter Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word at any Mass after the Great Vigil of Easter is a continuation of the proclamation of Christ’s Resurrection and victory over death and sin. This day’s festive quality cannot be over-emphasized. All the liturgical talents, gifts, and ministerial functions of a parish ought to be engaged. Indeed, hymns, psalms, alleluias, even orations, scripture texts, and dismissals, can all be sung if the talent is available and well-prepared. Absent both sufficient clergy and lay ministers (of music, word, communion and hospitality) there is no healthy way to festively celebrate Easter Mass. This may sound harsh to some, but it is crucial if the Church’s liturgy is indeed “the source and summit” of all Church life as the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council taught.
Today’s first scripture lesson is from Acts 10, even though most of the chapter has been edited out. It portion of a sermon delivered by Peter in the eloquent and powerful account of the conversion of the household of an Imperial Roman named Cornelius, and of how the Holy Spirit moved Jew and Gentile alike to embrace the Gospel message of the recently Risen Jesus of Nazareth. This chapter describes the abrogation of the practice of ritual purity and hints at the start of the great Gentile influx into the early Gospel community. It foreshadows the soon to come separation of Christianity from cultural and religious Judaism. It is a profound lesson and example about how God’s Spirit leads us to change any cultural or religious practice (values, biases, customs, practices and traditions) for the sake of healthy and constructive evolutionary application of the Gospel in order that all people might be able to hear and embrace Christ’s Gospel message. A crucial principle of evangelization is, Culture incarnates the Gospel and the Gospel critiques Culture. In other words, the Gospel message can only be lived well and effectively in a genuinely well-grounded cultural setting of current reality. At the same time, all aspects of any given culture are subject to Gospel challenge and correction when appropriate for the sake of creative, constructive and life-giving purpose. Every cultural institution is subject to the Gospel’s critique and demand for healthy growth and change, even the culture of the institutional Church! Have you ever thought about what constructive changes might someday be made in our Church for the sake of proclaiming, hearing and living the Gospel more effectively?! Acts 10 is about profound changes in religious beliefs and behaviors which the previous generation of God’s Chosen People had held to be absolutely essential and necessary. Yes, even our religious beliefs must change and evolve as we mature, or we will stagnate! With God, nothing is impossible!
Today’s second scripture lesson offers a choice between two texts (the choice is properly made by the homilist), each addressed to Christians wondering about the consequences of having been baptized. The text from Colossians exhorted the audience to consider noble and heroic virtues (“what is above”) in how they behaved as newly baptized. The Gospel critique of their lived culture sanctified the ordinary aspects of their lives, or so Paul asserted. How one behaved as a man or woman, husband or wife, parent or child, brother or sister, neighbor or friend, associate – even how one was an adversary in a dispute against another Christian – all these actions were lubricated by God’s Grace. The Gospel’s purpose was then (and is still) to sanctify all life’s tasks as befits a holy people. The alternate text, from 1st Corinthians, was aimed at Jewish Christians in 50s AD Corinth. It referred to the domestic disposal of old yeast and the beginning of a new starter batch of dough in the household kitchen, a significant event at the Jewish Passover time. Yeast was a metaphor for the effect each believer had in the community. Again, the Grace of Baptism – one’s embrace of and commitment to the Gospel – sanctified each and every aspect of the disciples’ lives. The messages of these two epistle texts are very similar. The images used as examples are different.
The Easter Day Gospel narrative is John’s account of the first visitors to the tomb on the original Easter morning. The lectionary cycle uses each Synoptic account for the Easter Vigil Liturgys of the Word (we used Matthew’s last night for Year A), and then proposes John’s Resurrection Narrative for Easter Day the way John’s Passion Narrative is always proclaimed on Good Friday.
According to all four Gospel accounts of Easter morning, Mary Magdalene was the principal character in the discovery of the opened and empty tomb. Precisely what had happened became clear only gradually. None among Jesus’ disciples grasped and expected Resurrection in spite of it’s mention by Jesus in his Passion Predictions and subsequent to the Transfiguration experience. None of his disciples had removed Jesus’ body from the tomb. Jewish burial custom included visiting the newly closed tomb for prayer, so to discover the tomb open and empty! – with or without mysterious individuals in dazzling garments or the burial cloths neatly arranged on the side – was a shock, impossible to comprehend. John’s account is very simple ... an opened and empty tomb ... hurry and go to report to Simon Peter with an assumed explanation (“They have taken him ...”) ... Peter and “the other disciple” hasten to see for themselves. The upshot was faith without much understanding. In John’s account, the story continued (20:11-18) with Mary Magdalene’s return to the tomb where she individually encountered the Risen Jesus, at first failing to recognize him. Once she was allowed (!!!) to perceive his true identity, it became clear that Resurrection was a reality and that Jesus’ physical presence had undergone a big transformation. This text witnesses to theological reflection in process: faith seeking understanding (the classical definition of theological reflection). Mary Magdalene became the Risen Lord’s first “apostle” when he sent her to tell the others that he was ascending. The definition of “apostle” was someone who (a) had encountered the Risen Lord Jesus and (b) had been sent by him on a Gospel mission. Mary Magdalene, in spite of her maligned reputation by some ignorant Christians, was arguably the first one to announce the Resurrection. Ten of the Twelve (Judas was dead and Thomas was absent) and some other disciples encountered the Risen Jesus for themselves that first Easter day and night, and did so again a week later, as Luke’s and John’s accounts relate. The Gospel lessons at Masses each weekday for Easter Week will relate the various Resurrection Appearances remembered in all four canonical Gospels.
No one can truthfully describe what Resurrection actually is in physical human terms. The Gospel accounts describe, rather, what Resurrection entailed, i.e., what effect it had in the person of the Risen Jesus and in the lives of the disciples whom he met on or after Easter. Everything the disciples had known and understood changed profoundly. What had been ordinary in their lives became extraordinary. When the Paschal Mystery became complete at Pentecost, their unremarkable human virtues became bold, peace-filled, and significant examples that moved some of them to abandon their former lives in order to announce a hope and confidence which had been hitherto unimaginable. Easter and it’s season of 50 days is the way the Church remembers such change. Can we change today? Yes, we can! How? By living the Gospel in ways wise and thoughtful, thankful and generous, prayerful and peace-building, joyful and compassionate. Our faith is meant to be attractive for good, healthy, wise and intelligent human reasons. We seek the Gospel and it’s God not out of fear of judgment and condemnation, but in hope of Salvation both here and now, and in the age to come!
The Church’s liturgies from Palm Sunday, through the Triduum, to today, might leave you feeling both exhausted and exhilarated. That’s precisely what happens to witnesses of the powerful proclamation of “Christ is Risen!” Thus, begins the 50 Days of the Easter Season!
Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!