HOMILY – EASTER SUNDAY 2006

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH

April 15, 2006 – EASTER VIGIL

May our triumphant Lord, risen from the dead, give us reason for joy.

A slamming double defeat, a new confidence, and the rolling stones.

St. John Chrysostom in 407 A.D. put the one-two punch of Easter best:

If any person is devout and loves God let him come to this radiant and triumphant feast.   If any person is a wise follower, let him enter into the joy of his Lord, rejoicing…  For he who was without sin and was held prisoner by death has annihilated it.  By descending into death, he made death captive. He angered it when it tasted of his flesh.  Sin and death are powerless over him.

Witness the faithful one, and a Father who accepts faithfulness as the new status for everyone.  The Father reveals that sin is not as powerful as His love.  BAM! The first punch. Jesus breaks the bondage, sin’s hold on us.   Then the Father raises Jesus from the dead making death no longer an end or a winner.  BAM!  God wins, and we win.  Sin and death get the one-two punch.  It is a slamming double defeat.

A new confidence.  People who come to believe in Jesus wake up in the morning grateful for God’s generosity. We wake up thinking, I didn’t deserve this release from my sin, but I am thankful and trust God.  We wake up feeling deeply regarded.  God knows what is best.

The confidence we share comes because God has treated us so well.  God

raises us up out of self orientation to be a sign of the world to come.  We can look into the eyes of an ungrateful or unrepentant person at work, school or home and know that we have simply been too well treated to let anything hurt all that much.  When we are loved by the one we really need to please, the others become easier to love.   There is a new confidence.

The Rolling Stones.  It is rich that we are together in this place. It is a warm soft place not made of stone. We designate this space and time to God and to each other.  To thankfulness.  We grow our understanding of what God has done.  We build a house like heaven because we have been given a taste of it.  This inspiring community is the body of Christ risen up from self-pity, to doing good for the poorer ones among us. 

We cannot be dead when we love this much. 

We are His real presence in the places where we are.  Like Jesus sent the tombstone rolling we send the bitterness of our hearts like rolling stones.

See the rolling stones.   Dramatic weight loss.  Rise body of Christ, rise.  No more ball and chain.  We are witnesses to all He has done.

Now, they run to shout about how you have “risen from the dead.”