Easter Sunday 2024

Easter—the night of which it is written the night shall be as bright as day, when Christ broke the prison bars of death, and the Father reconciled the world to Himself through the death and resurrection of His Son. Note that last, it is not merely through the resurrection that the world was reconciled to the Father, but the death and resurrection. Another look at death, you may ask, why must Catholics be so morbid? Why the skulls and memento mori-s and penance and crucifixes? Isn’t there enough death in the world already? Why can’t we just focus on the resurrection part? At the conclusion of Lent and at the hour of Easter, I think it’s important to attend to these questions.

I won’t belabor any points by repeating what we’ve previously discussed—the Lord’s call to take up our crosses and follow Him, to die to ourselves daily, to obey His commandments. Nor will I linger on the Good Shepherd who entered into our valley of darkness in order that He may commiserate with us and lead us out from it. Neither of these, though important, touch the very soul of those questions—why do we linger so on the subject of death? Why, indeed, would the Living God inspire the Psalmist to pen such words as precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints? Why would the great Physician who heals wounds give His saints painful stigmata and call them blessings? Why would He intentionally let His friend Lazarus, whom John comments explicitly whom He loved, undergo death from illness? Why would His apostle St. Paul write count it all joy when you experience trials of many kinds?

Is this a Divine sadism? An expectation that we should be masochists and revel in pain? Quite the contrary—and the answer is found in His very character. When the world experiences pain, its first instinct is to flee from it. To shrink back, to recoil, to run. Pain is intolerable, and the world wants to escape it. There are so many means of escape—vacations, creature comforts, sensual pleasures, indulgent foods, spas, drugs, the list goes on and on. Each thing billed as a way to escape the pain, to leave behind the creeping existential dread that lurks beneath the surface of the shiny cars and idyllic ads. There is always another solution when the efficacy of the prior wanes and a stronger drug when we adapt to the weaker. But Christ did not escape. When He rose from the grave, He did not flee death—He conquered it.

Christ put on flesh so that flesh would be part of Himself. He suffered so that suffering would be His. He died so that He could claim death. He made all things new. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. On the cross, He staked His claim on death, and in doing so claimed all of us who lived in death—so that in the Resurrection we might rise with Him as well. As yet, we wait here in this valley of tears, groaning inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. But as we wait, running the race, keeping the faith, we must continue to follow Him, crosses shouldered. He says, you are my friends if you do what I command you. A friend is one with whom we share our inner selves. I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. He shares His resurrection with His friend Lazarus. He shares His wounds with Padre Pio (and possibly St. Paul, the mysterious thorn in his side). He shares His cross with all who follow Him—because He shows us that even suffering and death are not things to be fled, but to be embraced, because He has taken them unto Himself and transformed them into joy and life.

How sweet is the mercy of Christ, for He has made all things new. How deeply He loves, for He took even suffering unto Himself so that He might sanctify our wounds, fill them with life, bless them, and bestow upon us all that is good. He has turned the blood of martyrs to glittering white robes, and the thorny crown of suffering into a resplendent crown of eternal glory. The night shall be as bright as day.