Easter Sunday 2020

Acts 10:34a-37-43; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9

Darkness is a classic metaphor for ignorance and unbelief, as well as death and evil. Mary came to the tomb in darkness and saw the stone rolled away. She ran away and told other disciples. She thought that the body of Jesus, their Lord and the one they loved, had been taken away. Only gradually did they all realize what had really happened, and only gradually did they understand what it meant.

Today we celebrate the triumph of the light (John 1:5) and we recommit ourselves to be people who live in the light of Christ.

In our second reading, St. Paul calls us to remember that we have died and risen with Christ in baptism. As a consequence, we must “think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” This doesn’t mean that we ignore what’s going on around us. On the contrary, we give it all the attention that it needs. But we do so with the mind and heart of Jesus. Just as Peter shared the kerygma ̧ the essential proclamation of the gospel, with Cornelius and his household (all gentiles) during a time of persecution, we are called be witnesses to the Good News.

That mission may seem more difficult to fulfill this Easter Sunday.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of good news these days. Our world is in the grips of a global epidemic that has made millions sick and killed over 100,000. Many people cannot work and are without the money that they need to feed their families and pay their other bills. We are together in our homes more than we ever imagined, and that’s not always a good thing! We live with the daily anxiety that we could get sick or unknowingly make someone else sick. On the day we want to be together in church to celebrate the life we have in Christ we are behind closed doors, keeping a social distance, and wearing masks.

But isn’t that how it was for the disciples of Jesus on the first Easter? They were behind closed doors, anxiously sheltering in place, keeping a more-than-social distance, and hoping that none of those who killed Jesus would recognize them as his followers.

As we will recall next Sunday, the risen Jesus passed through those locked doors. He wished them peace, he breathed the Holy Spirit into them, and he sent them to continue his mission. They found a way.

We, too, can find a way. There are many lessons that we will learn from this crisis. Some of them are medical, social, logistic and economic. But I hope that some of them will also be spiritual. I am not sure what all of these are or will be. Like the resurrection of Jesus was for the first disciples, we will realize and understand them only gradually.

But one timeless lesson is clear: the proclamation of the gospel is something we can all do in some way, everywhere, at any time, and to anyone. Through our baptism, we like Jesus have been anointed with the Holy Spirit and power. Like his disciples, we have been commissioned to live as he lived and to do what he did.

Following the martyrdom of many Catholics and other Christians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the church in Japan survived for over 200 years without priests, deacons or any other sacraments other than Baptism. All that the people had was the word of God, the Spirit of God, and their own testimony of how Jesus had transformed their lives. He was alive in them!

What we are going through today is difficult, very difficult. But it does not have to overwhelm us. As the psalmist reminds us, weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:6). Let today—this Easter—be that morning. God bless you. +