Reflection by Rev. Leonard N. Peterson
For any Christian, today’s event demands that any and all written references to it ought to be made in upper case letters. For this is the event that establishes our faith. More than any slogan printed on a tee shirt; or any catch phrase in a TV commercial, this gospel message of triumph must be writ large in the annals of human history. Why? Because “JESUS IS RISEN” is all one needs to cite for proof that Jesus is God approved by the Father and the Holy Spirit and all that He taught was the truth.
The secular world has a perennial problem grappling with this story, great as it is. It has the facts of the case in Holy Scripture. But how does one handle all that if God is non-existent? So, it has to invent a counter proposal. So, it tells us to celebrate Spring with its own new life after Winter using a new suit or dress; cuddly rabbits and chicks; colored eggs and jellybeans in a basket. In that way Easter can be ignored or at least be seen as the fantasy of the foolish.
On the other hand, Christ’s empty tomb thrills believers as they contemplate all that went before. The gloom of Good Friday yields to the glory of an empty tomb and then of seeing and eating with the Person who had been placed there. We realize anew that the rest of the gospel stories involved not just a magnetic preacher or a powerful healer, but the very Son of God. The record is there for all to see as a chronicle of God’s time among us and how He spent it. That the One who went to a wedding at Cana or climbed the hills of Galilee; or walked on the water toward a fishing boat filled with frightened Apostles; who made a lame man walk again and a blind man see was in fact divine! Indeed! He was the very One whose coming had been foretold by the Hebrew prophets and who saved the world from its captivity to sin and despair. And He did it through obedience and a suffering cruel and bloody in a human nature just like ours, minus any sin.
As a result, our Faith in Him glows with a new brightness, Hope rings in with louder bells and Love bursts through any confining definitions. When you add in the fact that all of us are invited to be part of this glorious story, yet to be fulfilled in a new life beyond the grave, and you have the formula for endless, deep joy.
Of course, implied here is the fact that we also have a duty to live as closely as we can to the way Christ did. To have an outward directed life. And to realize that our lives are not all about us, but about Him. To use a figure from another happy season, we can recall old Marley’s Christmas Eve warning to Scrooge about this same understanding of earthly life.
Meanwhile, we have a one-word summary of all this, which is the one great watchword of this season: it is “Alleluia!”
Happy Easter to you and yours!
Rev. Peterson’s Reading & Gospel Summary
Reading I: Acts 10: 34a, 37-43
God anointed Jesus at His baptism. The forgiveness of our sins f comes through the invocation of Christ’s name at our baptism.
Reading II: Colossians 3: 1-4
At His glorious Second Coming, Christ’s presence will initiate the general resurrection of the dead and the righteous bodies among them will radiate God’s glory.
The Gospel: John 20:1-9
The empty tomb is an indisputable fact of Easter morning, as testified even by the Roman soldiers put there as guards.