Leon Bent –
To believe that the “Lord is Risen” is to believe that He is present to us in a radical and miraculous way. His powerful presence is accessible only by faith — this is because He has ascended into heaven. Such is the substance of our hope. When we cleave to Him by faith, because His presence is real and personal, He raises us up with Him.
When Mary Magdalene calls out to the Risen Lord, He tells her not to cling to Him because He has not yet ascended to the Father. He sends her — the Apostle to the Apostles — to his Apostles to announce to them the resurrection. His words reveal that someday she will possess Him in a more palpable and marvellous way—but He must ascend from the midst of this life first, so that, this new presence can be known. She will have the fullness of faith when the Holy Spirit descends on her. By the faith the Holy Spirit produces, Mary Magdalene will be raised up to new life – and she will be able to cling to the ‘One’ she loves—and who loves her even more!
Nevertheless, even though Mary Magdalene cannot yet cling to Him, the faith of the Apostles is stirred by her message. They run to find the empty tomb and encounter the Lord for themselves. They hear His voice and speak to Him. They see His body. They touch his wounds. They eat with Him. But they cannot yet cling to Him.
Christian faith is not a self-generated psychological exercise. It is part of the new creation, the new humanity which the Risen Lord has established by His victory; his Gift of the Holy Spirit produces faith. This is why He ascended into Heaven. The Giver of Life could only descend on us if Christ ascended to His Father.
The resurrection was not a mere restoration of an earthly paradise — it creates access to heaven. This is a new humanity, with power that exceeds what this world can contain, which is filled with what is eternal.
What about us, here and now? The Risen Jesus longs that, we be where He is; at the right hand of the Father. Now we can only cling to Him by faith.
Christian contemplation and theology converge on the objective and personal presence of the Risen Lord. Objectively, we know He is present to us quite apart from whether we feel or imagine Him. By personal experience, we know that our faith opens up a real heart-to-heart relationship with Him. This is not fairy-tale stuff — it is the substance of our hope.
This objective and personal faith is not limited to knowing things about the Lord; the Christian faith discloses the mysterious depths of God, so that, we can really know Him and His great love. To know these depths, to plummet them in prayer, to search them in sacred doctrine — such things raise us up with Him, so that, we might dwell with him. In all this the fullness of joy is ours, even now in a hidden way, here below. The banquet has begun in mystery, and all this as we learn to cling to Him.
Open your heart in faith to Christ and his promises. You are destined, if you do so, to share Christ’s own life: You will be resurrected as he is resurrected; you are to live a life of unending love as he does; you are to live forever in eternal communion with God, the Father. What incredible, unbelievable beauty beckons!
Exultet! Rejoice!
The stone was rolled away! (Lk.2-3; Mk.16:1-8; Mt.28:2).
Matthew tells us that an angel from heaven came down in plain view of the soldiers who were guarding the sealed tomb. The soldiers watched in shock as the angel rolled away the stone from the tomb and sat on it.
If we were there, we would have expected to see Jesus walk out into the morning light. There was just one problem. The tomb was already empty. Just as he could not be hindered from entering in a locked room, he could not be contained by the sealed tomb.
The stone was not rolled away, so that, Jesus could escape. It was rolled away, so that, you would know that the tomb was empty. With his resurrection, Christ no longer lived with the limitations of his human body. Death and the restrictions of our flesh were conquered that Easter morning. As Paul said, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor.15:15).
The angel of God opened an empty tomb for all to see. Jesus now moved about with the grace and power of a body not subject to the barriers and boundaries of earth. Jesus fulfilled the Gospel promise made to Eve so long ago. The curse was broken (Gen. 3:14b).
One day, you and I will have a body like the one that left the sealed tomb. This is part of what Easter means. Death, sickness, and physical limitations will be no more. Just as our spirit has been freed from the ravages of sin, so too will our bodies.
This is what Easter means. It is not a mystical event or an elevation of consciousness. Easter transforms us totally: renewed, rejuvenated, twice-born in spirit and in body. Good Friday has vanished into thin air! Bodily suffering is, now, momentary! The joy of our glorified bodies awaits us for all time to come!
The empty tomb let out glorious hurrahs of the exuberant, resurrected Jesus and the ecstatic delight of Mary Magdalene! The stone that was rolled away offers us great joy and brings hope of eternity with Christ!
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI notes: “I live and you will live also”, says Jesus in Saint John’s Gospel (14:19) to his disciples, that is, to us. We will live through our existential communion with him, through being taken up into him who is life itself. Eternal life, blessed immortality, we have not by ourselves or in ourselves, but through a relation – through existential communion with him who is Truth and Love and, is, therefore, eternal: God himself. Simple indestructibility of the soul by itself could not give meaning to eternal life it could not make it a true life. Life comes to us from being loved by him who is Life; it comes to us from living-with and loving-with him. Galatians 2:20 says, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” This is the way of the Cross, the way that “crosses over” a life simply closed in on the “I”, thereby opening up the road towards true and lasting joy.
Thus, says the aging former Pontiff, we can sing full of joy, together with the Church, in the words of the Exsultet: “Sing, choirs of angels . . . rejoice, O earth!” The Resurrection is a cosmic event, which includes heaven and earth and links them together. In the words of the Exsultet once again, we can proclaim: “Christ . . . who came back from the dead and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, your Son who lives and reigns forever and ever”. Amen!
The Exsultet or Paschal Proclamation which is sung on Holy Saturday Night at the Easter Vigil Mass is one of the greatest prayers of Christian worship that, proclaims and endorses the three models of Redemption through Jesus’ Paschal Mystery. It proclaims thus: “the power of this holy night dispels all evil (liberation model), washes guilt away and restores lost innocence (expiation model), which brings mourners joy. The night is truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth and man is reconciled to God (love model)!” [The Roman Missal, 354-355; O’Collins & Kendall, Focus on Jesus, 181; VJTR, June 2016)].
Through Liturgy and Worship Jesus is present to us in divine-human reality: redemption, liberation, atonement and love! In worship the believing community remembers and celebrates God’s wondrous deeds in the past, present, and with eyes eschatologically cast into the future fulfillment of history, where God will be all in all. The post-communion prayer for Wednesday of the third week of Easter embodies the tripartite timeline in these words: “Hear, O Lord, our prayers, that this most holy exchange, by which you have redeemed us, may bring your help in this present life and ensure for us eternal gladness”(The Roman Missal, 407, emphasis – the writer’s).
For all their majestic richness the mysteries of faith must trickle down and touch people’s concrete circumstances, so that, they are transformed in the process. Then, the world will be healed. The New Translation of the Roman Missal, in two of its dismissal formulas, is cognizant of the mandate-to-mission that wind up the Mass. These are: “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” and “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” The Peace Pulpit urges: “Go where people need to be encouraged and be given hope, and buoy them up with the joy of the Gospel.”
And this final flourish! Redemption entails participation! We are called to act out what we receive.” Looking at salvation from the standpoint of the Spirit directs our attention to the love of the Trinity (of which it is the bond) and to the task of fostering loving relationships among creatures, in echo of the Trinitarian relationship. It lets us view Christian spirituality as intimacy with the Spirit and a following of the Spirit-led path of Jesus. Some post-modern theologians, with fresh insight, call this phenomenon “Spirit Christology!”
Now, this Gold Nugget: “Through the resurrection humankind came to believe in God in a new way; man’s relationship to God was changed; a whole new vision of God and His intention for humanity was made possible; the whole flow of time and history was redirected. Nevertheless, too much stress on the bodily resurrection keeps us from defining the resurrection solely in terms of what God has done for humankind. The resurrection was and remains, first of all, what God has done for Jesus. It was not an evolution in human consciousness, nor was it the disciples’ brilliant insight into the meaning of the crucifixion – it was the sovereign action of God glorifying Jesus of Nazareth. Only because God has done this for His Son have new possibilities opened for His many children, who have come to believe in what He has done” (The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, Raymond Brown – “for nearly 40 years Father Brown caught the entire church up into the excitement and new possibilities of scriptural scholarship”).
The Punch Line! He is Risen, Alleluia! Amen! That is the best news we can possibly tell a dying world!
And, this final flourish! The Bible speaks of creation as virtually the finger-painting of God, while the resurrection of Christ required the strong arm of God! It is His mighty work!
The last word! The most important thing about Easter is the Mystery, the Mysticism, and the Miracle of the Moment!
Leon Bent frequently contributes Researched Articles to numerous Newsletters, Catholic Magazines and Theological Journal across the Globe, and Digital Online Portals in India and Worldwide, sometimes with a reach of 40 million readers.