The Fact of Christ's Rising from the Dead!

+ J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for the Easter Vigil, Year C

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we have walked a long journey to arrive here this evening… the 40 days of Lent are past… Shannon, your months now of preparation to enter the Church have come to their fruition! … and in our Liturgy of the Word, the richest and longest of the year, we have seen how God worked patiently and quietly down through the long millennia, calling His people back to Himself. We have also walked the long journey of this Holy Week, experiencing in prayer and liturgy the Lord’s arduous journey to Calvary. They have been heavy days, in some sense, heavy with an awareness of our own sin, heavy with an awareness of the Lord’s suffering. No Mass has been celebrated since the Mass of the Lord’s Supper anywhere in the world, the only hiatus like that of the entire year. By God’s grace and the Church’s invitation, we have encountered sin and death face to face.

Paul points this out to us very clearly in our Epistle: “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” This is the full symbolism of baptism… washing, but also death… we descended into the waters of baptism, into death, into the Flood, into the darkness of the tomb.

However, we have not gathered in the dark of the night, in the initial darkness of our church, simply to encounter death. We have not fasted, given alms, and prayed simply to know our own weakness. We must face the reality of sin and death, but this is not the message of our faith. St. Paul spoke of our baptism into Christ’s death, but he continued, he had more to say, “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

Jesus walked through all our pain and sorrow, took upon His own bloody shoulders all of our sadness and sin… and He went to the Cross, He died for us, and was buried in the tomb. Jesus faced this pain and darkness head on, He did not flinch, He did not turn away. Humanly speaking, it should all have ended there. His closest followers were sad and divided, His enemies appeared to have won. All that was left was a little security, a little mopping up, the small matter of sending some soldiers to guard the tomb.

But on the Third Day, at dawn, after the long night had passed, that tomb was empty! This is not a religious idea, this is no theory about life and the world and the meaning of everything. This is a historical fact, and the data supports its hard truth… the tomb was empty, despite being guarded, the body was not there. The angels told them something strange and unexpected, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.”

He has been raised! He had told them, they had heard the words, but they did not understand… how could they have imagined! No mere worldly victory, no mere material or physical power or dominion, but conquest over sin and even death itself! Jesus conquered death by death! O Happy Fault of Adam, which won for us so great a redeemer!

We greet this news with more than joy at a distant historical event… this is no mere lore, no mere legend from long ago. This is the crux of our faith and life. Paul said it so clearly in another place, “If Jesus has not risen from the dead, we are the greatest of fools.” Our faith is not a set of ideas or theories, no mere philosophy or theology… it is grounded on a fact, on a victory, it is rooted in the one who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” the one who was killed, and rose again.

The invitation to us tonight is to draw near this great joy and beauty, and to allow it to impact our lives, our words and deeds. Paul had this so clearly in mind. Let me close with his words to the Romans, words spoken now to us with the living voice of the Church, the Body of Christ, of which we are members by our baptism:

For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin. For a dead person has been absolved from sin. If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as being dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.

May the beauty of this night, may the joy of Jesus’ rising from the dead drive these words deep into our hearts… death no longer has power over him! In Him, death no longer has power over us! Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, alleluia, alleluia! He is risen indeed, alleluia, alleluia!

+ A. M. D. G. +