Author: DVO

Today’s Gospel verse from Mark brings us back to our discussion on the Resurrection of Jesus. Mark reminds us that his followers saw the first appearances of Jesus as being unbelievable by those who reported he had risen. Fr. Rolheiser also reminds us that his crucifixion led to Jesus rising from death. He goes on to say that everything good eventually gets scapegoated and crucified. This perverse dictate, somehow innate within human life, assures that there’s always someone or something that cannot leave well enough alone but must hunt down and lash out at what’s good. What’s good, what’s of God, will always at some point be misunderstood, envied, hated, pursued, falsely accused, and eventually nailed to some cross. All who are in Christ inevitably suffer the same fate as Jesus: death through misunderstanding, ignorance, and jealousy. But there’s a flip side. Resurrection always eventually trumps crucifixion. What’s good ultimately triumphs. Thus, while nothing of God will avoid crucifixion, no one’s body in Christ stays in the tomb for long. God always rolls back the stone, and soon enough, new life bursts forth, and we see why that original life had to be crucified. Resurrection invariably follows crucifixion. Every crucified body will rise again. Our hope takes its root in that, as Bishop Robert Barron notes: “Jesus went all the way down, journeying into pain, despair, alienation, even godforsakenness. Why? In order to reach all of those who had wandered from God. Then, in light of the Resurrection, the first Christians came to know that, even as we run as fast as we can away from the Father, all the way to godforsakenness, we are running into the arms of the Son. The Resurrection shows that Christ can gather back to the Father everyone whom he has embraced through his suffering love.”

Jesus’ disciples experienced a lot of doubt, even on the original Easter Sunday. Fr. Rolheiser writes that they, like us, were mourning crucified dreams. What reversed this? What moved them from despair to new hope? It was not just the fact of the resurrection that changed them, for they doubted, huddled in fear, locked doors, despaired, and tried to go back to their old ways of life even after they had seen the empty tomb. What brought resurrection faith was the in-the-flesh appearance of the resurrected Christ. Through these appearances, Christ built up their faith slowly and gently until they no longer needed these appearances. Where does the resurrected Christ have flesh in our life? The resurrected Christ appears to us in the flesh in those persons who are arsonists of the heart and make our hearts burn within us. What kind of person burns messianic holes within us? Those who speak of mustard seeds, who tell us about the value of what’s hidden, small, and insignificant; those who tell us that pain can bring deep meaning and redemption; those who tell us that, despite all, that reality is gracious, and we can trust and love. These words stir what’s best within us, burn holes in us, stir faith, roll stones back from tombs, and show us the resurrected Christ in the flesh. And that flesh always looks ordinary. The arsonist of the heart invariably looks like someone we know, a familiar somebody, like the resurrected Christ in his appearances from a gardener, to a cook, to a stranger. It is interesting to speculate why the disciples often didn’t recognize Christ after the resurrection. Yet Mary Magdalene, who surely knew him well, took him for a gardener. Later, on the road and the shore, his disciples took him to be a stranger, then a cook. They only recognized him as the Christ in the breaking of the bread. That is why as we journey together, mourning so many of our crucified dreams, we would do well to be attentive to what causes arson in the heart. We should learn to look more closely at each other’s faces during the breaking of the bread.

Jesus is the lamb of God who takes the sin of the world! Fr. Rolheiser writes that Jesus, as the lamb of God, does not take away the world’s sin by somehow carrying it off so that it is no longer present inside the community. He takes it away by transforming it, by changing it, by taking it inside of himself and transmuting it. We see examples of this throughout his entire life, although it is most manifest in the love and forgiveness he shows at the time of his death. In simple language, Jesus took away the sin of the community by taking in hatred and giving back love; by taking in anger and giving out graciousness; by taking in envy and giving back blessing; by taking in bitterness and giving out warmth; by taking in pettiness and giving back compassion; by taking in chaos and giving back peace; and by taking in sin and giving back forgiveness. This is what constitutes the sacrificial part of his love, namely, the excruciatingly pain (ex cruce, from the cross) that he had to undergo in order to take in hatred and give back love. That is our task too, to help take away the sin of the world. We do this whenever we take in hatred, anger, envy, pettiness, and bitterness, hold them, transmute them, and eventually give them back as love, graciousness, blessing, compassion, warmth, and forgiveness.

We are told that on the day of the resurrection, two disciples were walking away from Jerusalem towards Emmaus, their faces downcast. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that every body of Christ inevitably suffers the same fate as Jesus: death through misunderstanding, ignorance, and jealousy. Everything good eventually gets scapegoated and crucified. While nothing that’s of God will avoid crucifixion, no body of Christ stays in the tomb for long. God always rolls back the stone, and soon enough, new life bursts forth, and we see why that original life had to be crucified. Resurrection invariably follows crucifixion. Every crucified body will rise again. Our hope takes its root in that. Jerusalem was the dream, the hope, and the religious center from which all is to begin and where ultimately, all is to culminate. And the disciples are “walking away” from this place, away from their dream, towards Emmaus (Emmaus was a Roman Spa), a place of human comfort. They never get to Emmaus. Jesus appears to them on the road, reshapes their hope in the light of their disillusionment, and turns them back towards Jerusalem. That is one of the essential messages of Easter: Whenever we are discouraged in our faith, whenever our hopes seem to be crucified, we need to go back to Jerusalem, that is, back to the dream and the road of discipleship that we had embarked upon before things went wrong.  

Mary Magdalene also teaches us the great cost of such a Christ-centered life. Rachel Bulman writes that when our hearts are centered on Jesus, the things that formerly held such value in this world quickly lose their luster in the weight of his gaze. We will desire to be poured out, embarrassed for him, scorned for him, and give it all away in service to him. This life of self-donation inevitably leads us to the cross. In our reflection verse from the Gospel of John, the risen Lord asks Mary why she is weeping, and at that moment, she thinks that he is the gardener. The great irony of this is that Jesus is the gardener. He is the great gardener returning to the earth to put what was disordered in the first garden in the proper order. He sows the seeds of redemption into the heart of Mary Magdalene, telling her not to cling to him but to go and tell everyone that he has returned. In many ways, she is the blueprint for the making of great evangelizers, for an evangelist must live in such a way that the Gospel is preached no matter the cost. Living a life of complete self-donation and total Christ-centeredness will cost us all that the world has to offer but will inevitably lead us over and over again to the same garden of the Resurrection.

Paula Huston reflects on today’s verse and brings us back to what was occurring after the death and resurrection of Jesus. People had questions as many do to this very day. Did the angel roll back the stone and sit on it, or was he inside the tomb when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrived? Were there, in fact, two angels? And how did the women respond to the news that Jesus had been raised from the dead? With joy? Terror? Bewilderment? Did they rush off to tell the other disciples, or were they struck dumb? If our belief in the resurrection is based on whether or not the details of the empty tomb scene line up precisely in the four Gospel accounts, then we’ve got a problem. Yet Christianity itself depends on whether or not this story is true. And two thousand years later, we cannot return to that historical period and interview the witnesses. What we can know, however, is whether Christ lives on today. Do we experience Him in His Word and the Holy Eucharist? Do we hear Him speaking into the depths of our souls? Do we see Him at work through the deeds of those who have devoted their lives to Him? Is he slowly changing us from one kind of person into another? Here, in our own lives, is where we either find proof of the resurrection or we don’t. If we passionately desire Christ’s presence, He will come. If we genuinely desire to know Him, He will open our eyes to the invisible divine reality that grounds our physical existence.

The Gospel of John provides an account of the resurrection of Jesus. Bishop Robert Barron writes that John describes the early morning on the first day of the week. It was still dark, just as it was at the beginning of time before God said, “Let there be light.” But a light was about to shine, and a new creation was about to appear. The stone had been rolled away. That stone, blocking the entrance to the tomb of Jesus, stands for the finality of death. When someone we love dies, it is as though a great stone is rolled across them, permanently blocking our access to them. And this is why we weep at death, not just in grief but in a kind of existential frustration. Undoubtedly, the first disciples must have thought a grave robber had been at work. But the incredible Johannine irony is that the greatest grave robber had been at work. God had opened the grave of His Son, just as the prophet Ezekiel said, “I will open your graves and have you rise from them.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser reminds us that one of the tasks of Easter is to rekindle the creed within ourselves. In essence, we are saying that God is ultimately still in charge of this universe, despite any indications to the contrary. Immediately upon experiencing the resurrected Jesus, the earliest Christians spontaneously voiced a one-line creed: “Jesus is Lord!” That does, in fact, say it all. When we strain to hear the voices of Good Friday; when we affirm that Jesus has been raised from the dead; when we shout to the heavens that Jesus is Lord of this world, we are saying everything else within our faith as well. To celebrate Easter is to affirm that all of this is true. Amen, amen!

The Gospel of Matthew recounts the story of Jesus rising from the dead, recognized as the Christ, the Messiah foretold by the prophets. The women who came to minister to the dead body of Jesus were startled. Something completely unexpected happens, something that changes their lives. Reflecting on the reading, Pope Francis says we often retract from God’s surprises for our lives. He notes that we often act as the Apostles, preferring to remain in the security of our present state, standing in front of the tomb, recalling the memory of the one that has passed on like so many other historical figures. Why are we so closed off to the newness that God offers us? Do we lack the confidence that God can change any circumstance? Do we not believe God can forgive any sin if we are open to his mercy and grace? Here is the reality of what the resurrection of Jesus meant, as stated by St. Paul: “If Jesus is not raised from the dead, our preaching is in vain, and we are the most pitiable of men.” In all that you can read and research, it all comes down to this: if Jesus was not raised from death, Christianity is a fraud and a joke. But if he did rise from death, then Christianity is the fullness of God’s revelation, and Jesus must be the absolute center of our lives. There is no third option.

In Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, he intentionally focuses on the most graphic aspects of Jesus’s crucifixion. The focal point was to get us to understand the immensity of pain Jesus endured as our paschal sacrifice. In Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s book, The Passion and the Cross, he writes with great insight about the way the gospels make scant reference to the physical suffering of Jesus. He sees beyond the blood and gore and concentrates on the inner attitudes at the core of Jesus’ heart of forgiveness, empathy, willingness, and love. Dr. Conrad Yap, in a review of Fr. Rolheiser’s book, notes the four key themes of his book that clearly show us why the Cross of Christ is so significant: The cross as a moral revolution points us away from external things toward the inner life of a spiritual man; the cross as the deepest revelation shows us the passion of God and how he longs for us even before we wake up from our sinful slumber; the cross of salvation gives us life; and the resurrection leads us to life everlasting in the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Fr. Rolheiser further observes “six interpenetrating things” about what it means to carry our cross daily: (1) accepting that suffering is part of life; (2) choosing not to pass down bitterness to others; (3) having the willingness to let parts of us die; (4) waiting for the resurrection that is to come; (5) humbly acknowledging that life is often not what we expect; and (6) a willingness to surrender our lives. The lesson of Jesus’s passion asks us is: In the darkness of life, will we let go of our light? In the face of hatred, will we let go of love? That’s the real and central drama of the Passion of the Christ, not the ropes, whips, and nails.

In The Farewell Discourses, Adrienne von Speyr speaks of the hour of the Lord’s return to the Father is near. The Lord is not thinking of that but of accomplishing the highest and most definitive act possible in the time remaining to him on earth, of realizing the uttermost love. He knows that he comes from love and is going to love and that he himself is love. This love he wants to give to his own, just as he possesses it: wholly and prodigally. In everything he does, he desires only to love. As Jesus moves from disciple to disciple as he washes their feet in today’s gospel reading, one can wonder what his thoughts were. We can imagine him lovingly gazing at each disciple, seeing a person for whom he would win salvation. C.S. Lewis is famous for saying that humility results not so much from thinking less of ourselves but from thinking of ourselves less. Surely, Jesus was thinking of each person whom he was serving. Our first instinct in seeing this action played out again in our churches two thousand years later may be to see the foot washing as simply a good deed to be repeated, which of course, it is. But in his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI broadens this initial instinct and views the washing as a deep foreshadowing of Christ’s ultimate kenosis: the emptying of his divinity on the cross for our salvation. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, reflecting on this reading, suggests that Jesus could be imagining the shadow of that cross on which he died as he prayed in the Garden, “Father, if it is your will, take this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.” Thus my humble part this Holy Week is to stretch my imagination, to accompany Jesus to his cross in my life so that the Holy Eucharist, given as a gift this blessed evening, might flow through me.