Homily for Easter Sunday 2024
What is a miracle? The word is used often and not always in a very precise way. A quick search on the Internet revealed exercises, mineral solutions, and even a perfume, all described as “miraculous.”
At least the word seems to be useful for advertising. Probably we have also heard stories from the Middle Ages or antiquity that tell of extraordinary events. And probably some are really miracles, others are legends. They are the special effects that storytellers from a time before movies used to make a story more fascinating, moving, or funny.
Speaking more precisely, a miracle is something that happens in this world caused by a power beyond this world. Miracles do not mean that the divine is absent from non-miraculous events, from everyday events. When a doctor uses his intelligence to save life, he is using a divine gift–intelligence–to cooperate with the purpose of God who wants to save life and not destroy it. When a woman gives birth it is not a miracle in the literal sense–it does not require a force beyond human biology–but I would say there is something divine about that event because it is a participation in the Creator’s work.
A miracle, however, requires a power that no creature possesses.
We know with certainty that there has been at least one miracle in the history of the universe, namely, the creation of the universe. No existing thing possesses the power to create everything from nothing. This power is the essence of a miracle. I haven’t smelled the miraculous perfume, but I doubt that it qualifies .
Today we celebrate the miracle of miracles–the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Since creation there has been no other event like this. It is the most important event in human history, an event so different from all other historical events that, even today, after almost two thousand years, it remains difficult to explain.
It is difficult to explain because when we try to explain something we have to compare it to something else that is already known–and the resurrection of Christ cannot be compared to anything else. I tried to think of what historical event could be put in the second place–the fall of the Roman Empire?
The discovery of America? The lunar landing ? Nothing seems adequate. These other events aren’t even in the same category.
The only event to which we can compare the resurrection is, in fact, the creation, and, therefore, to understand the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection we must speak of a new creation, a new way of being.
Every year when I read this passage from John’s Gospel I am amazed at the confusion of the apostles.
Mary of Magdala does not seem to know what to say or how to feel. Peter and John run to the tomb, but then they don’t know what to do when they get there. They are afraid. They fixate on particular details–who enters the tomb first, the position of the cloths–that do not really touch the central event because they have no words to describe the central event. It is something totally new, and, even though Jesus had repeatedly prophesied it, they have difficulty understanding it and fear believing it.
But, dear brothers and sisters, this event in Jerusalem, this new creation, is the most important event in history because it is not a merely historical event. It is an event that touches each of us; this divine power, this power beyond all created capacities, has been exercised for us, on our behalf, as was the creation, the undeserved gift of our existence. The fact that we exist–that there is something rather than nothing–is already a miracle, a marvel of pure generosity.
And the new creation in Christ is equally an act of generosity because in this new creation the Creator offers us the opportunity to share his divine power. Through the sacraments, with very simple elements–water, bread, wine, simple human gestures–the Lord of the universe shares his life with us.
We see the effects of the resurrection in the apostles we find in the readings: Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles, transformed, without the shakiness we saw on Good Friday, a new man. And the Apostle Paul, equally transformed by his encounter with the Risen One from persecutor to witness to the faith, who exhorts the Colossians not to live as before, not to live still in the old creation, but in the new–“seek the things above,” he says, “where Christ is.” These men, who knew Jesus in the flesh and then met him after the resurrection, recognized that this event changes everything. And they left everything behind, risked everything, lived with absolute freedom to the point of offering their lives in witness to the truth of Jesus’ resurrection.
My message today, no different than the message of Peter and Paul, is not to live this day as just another day. Today is not a mere cultural celebration–a little pomp, better food–but it is the event that changes everything. Let this event be the benchmark for all other events in our lives. How absurd to profess that Jesus Christ is risen and then live as if our religion is one activity among others, to be inserted, if there is time, between shopping, work, vacations, and TikTok videos. The resurrection is the event that relativizes the importance of all other events, that changes their importance and meaning.
The resurrection changes where we can look for hope. I fear for the future, the powerful are corrupt, the weak suffer, nations go to war–but Jesus Christ is risen. I can face these realities, though ugly, with courage because the horizon of reality has changed.
Our anxieties, our fears, even our deepest losses become challenges instead of tragedies if we remember that Jesus Christ is risen. Perhaps I am facing the reality of illness, old age, death–but Jesus Christ is risen. Perhaps this year, for some of us, for the first time, someone dear to us is not here–but death does not have the last word because Jesus Christ is risen.
The little joys of daily life become signs of divine life because Jesus Christ is risen. A smile, a greeting made with sincere affection, a spring morning can remind us of the generosity and benevolence of the Creator because Jesus Christ is risen. Our faults, sins that seemed insuperable, are ashes because we know that God’s love for us is infinitely more powerful. The brutality of Good Friday, with the violence of the crucifixion, has become the sacrifice that saves us because Jesus Christ is risen.
And in a few minutes, bread and wine will become this same sacrifice that saves us, and the Risen One will be present among us and in us. And then, perhaps, the meal waiting for you at home will become more than just a feast, a true celebration of the victory of life over death, of the new creation over the tomb. Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, for eternity do not tire of repeating this message and living it. Jesus Christ is risen!
(Original: Italian)
Readings: Acts 10:34, 37-43; 1 Cor 5:6-8; John 10:1-9
Maracalagonis (Sardinia), Italy
Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 