Easter 2

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31

Resurrection, if it means anything at all,
means Jesus being raised from his tomb:
not a metaphor, not a symbol, 
not even a timeless truth concerning 
the power of life over death,
but the returning to life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Resurrection, if it means anything at all,
means the eruption of life 
through the hard crust of death
at a particular place and time,
a startling new fact in our world.
Resurrection, if it means anything at all,
involves a body that still bears the wounds
inflicted in a moment of time on the Son of God,
wounds that could be seen and touched
even in his glorified body,
wounds that he shows to us and says,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Resurrection, if it means anything at all, 
means what happened to Jesus.
But that is not all it means.
Resurrection means what happened to Jesus
but it also means what happens to us.
Resurrection is the new life of Jesus 
erupting into our lives,
erupting into our world,
remaking everything we think we know
about life and death 
and how to navigate the world.

And this is why resurrection scares us.
When the seer John, 
living in exile on the Island of Patmos,
beheld the risen Jesus
he fell at his feet “as though dead.”
When Thomas heard of Jesus’ resurrection
he refused to believe without evidence,
not because he had a skeptical cast of mind,
but because he knew that if Jesus were risen
then everything was changed,
and he was not so sure that he wanted
to live in a world where the dead do not stay dead.
He was not so much doubting Thomas 
as he was fearful Thomas:
fearful of what it would mean for life
if the certainty of death’s victory 
were overturned.

We may fear death, 
but this is a fear that has been with us so long
that we have learned how to manage it,
how to cope with death’s finality.
Death sets a limit to our lives
and a limit to our loves,
and so we measure out our attachments,
we ration our compassion,
we hold our mercy in reserve,
doling it out only to the deserving.

But resurrection is beyond 
our capacity to manage,
for it opens to us 
the dizzying abyss of God’s love,
a love that gives us everything
and asks everything in return,
a love that sweeps us up in a torrent
flowing from wellsprings of mercy 
that we could not imagine.
Resurrection calls us to love as Jesus loved,
and, well, we know how he ended up:
hung upon a cross.
Yet resurrection says that the way of Jesus,
the way that passes through the cross,
is the only true way to life.

What does resurrection look like?
If it looks like anything it looks like Jesus,
whose wounded body now pulses with life eternal.
But the light shed by the glory of Christ’s resurrection
also illuminates resurrection all around us.

It looks like Yolanda Tinajero,
whose brother was one of twenty-three people
killed five years ago at a Walmart in El Paso
by a self-proclaimed white nationalist.
This past Tuesday, at the victim impact statements
that are a part of the sentencing process,
she asked if she could approach 
the convicted killer to embrace him, 
“so you could feel my forgiveness, especially my loss.”
The judge, to everyone’s surprise, allowed this,
and as she held her brother’s killer he began,
for the first time in the proceedings, 
to weep tears of remorse.
Mercy was offered not because the killer deserved it,
but because she needed to give it.
She showed him her wounds and said,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
That is what resurrection looks like.

It looks like the six couples
who spent this weekend with Deacon Andrew and me 
preparing for the sacrament of matrimony,
preparing—in a world in which relationships 
seem ever more transactional and disposable—
to offer themselves to each other 
freely and without reservation,
in fruitful and permanent love,
to open themselves to the abyss of God’s love
by opening themselves to each other,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
showing each other their wounds and saying,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
That is what resurrection looks like.

It looks like Pope Francis,
his bodily strength exhausted,
going out one last time 
to impart a blessing to the city and the world,
to share with us the glad tidings of Easter. 
Too weak himself to speak, 
his message was read out:
“The resurrection of Jesus is indeed 
the basis of our hope. 
For in the light of this event, 
hope is no longer an illusion. 
Thanks to Christ— 
crucified and risen from the dead— 
hope does not disappoint! 
Spes non confundit! (cf. Rom 5:5). 
That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; 
it does not delude, but empowers us.”
In his final hours 
Francis showed to us his wounds, and said,
“do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
That is what resurrection looks like.

The light of the risen Christ reveals
resurrection all around us.
The voice of the risen Christ commands us:
“Do not be afraid.
I am the first and the last, the one who lives.
Once I was dead, 

but now I am alive forever and ever.
I hold the keys to death 

and the netherworld.”
The love of the risen Christ 
raises us with him from the tomb
so that we may love as he loves,
without counting the cost,
without measuring mercy,
without fearing to fall,
for his mercy will bear us up. 
So let our lives be 
what resurrection looks like,
and let us pray that God, 
who is merciful,
will have mercy on us all.

Palm Sunday

Readings: Lk 19:28-40; Is 50:4-7; Ph 2:6-11; Lk 22:14—23:56

VIDEO

We like our leaders strong.

We like them strong because 
we want them to protect us.
We like them strong because
the world is a tough place
and if you don’t want 
to get pushed around 
you need someone
who can meet force with force,
who can return blow for blow.
We like them strong because 
we see our leaders as role models,
and would like to be strong ourselves,
or at least to feel the warm, reflected glow
of our leader’s strength.

Alas for us Christians.
There is a moment where Jesus 
looks like he might turn out to be 
the strong leader that we want.
There is a moment 
when he rides into Jerusalem 
greeted by rapturous cries of
“Blessed is the king who come
in the name of the Lord,”
and we think, 
“Now it’s going to happen;
here at last is the one 
who will keep us safe
and make our enemies pay.”

Alas for us Christians,
that’s not how it turned out.
Our leader did not 
make our enemies pay.
Our enemies betrayed him
and arrested him
and lied about him
and mocked him
and tortured him
and killed him.
And what did he do?
What did he say?

Alas for us Christians, he said, 
“let the greatest among you 
be as the youngest,
and the leader as the servant….
I am among you 
as the one who serves.”
He said, 
“not my will but yours be done”
as his sweat became like drops of blood
falling on the ground.
He said,
“Stop, no more of this!”
when his disciples drew their weapons
to defend him.
He said,
“Father, forgive them, 
they know not what they do.”
He said,
“Father, into your hands 
I commend my spirit”

Are we disappointed?
Are we disappointed that he,
who was in the form of God,
“emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave…
humbled himself, 
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross”?
Are we disappointed that he seems
to have surrendered his power
just when we needed it most?
Are we disappointed not merely
because he did not meet force with force,
did not return blow for blow,
but let himself be humiliated
before the watching world,
giving his back to those who beat him,
his cheeks to those who plucked his beard;
not shielding his face from buffets and spitting.
Are we disappointed that he didn’t rage 
against the dying of the light?

But what if we are wrong?
Not wrong to want a strong leader,
but wrong about what counts as true strength.
Not wrong to want our enemies defeated,
but wrong about how that defeat takes place.
Not wrong to aspire to emulate our leader,
but wrong about what it means to follow his way.
What if strength 
is found in humility?
What if the defeat of our enemies 
is found in forgiving them?
What if the path to glory
is the way of the Cross?

Now we enter into this mystery—
the mystery of strength found in weakness,
the mystery of victory found in mercy,
the mystery of life found in death.

Alas for us Christians 
if we turn our backs on this mystery,
preferring the ruler of this world,
with his blustering power and his empty show,
to the true king who comes in the Lord’s name.

Alas for us Christians if we walk amid 
the halls of worldly power,
rather than walking the path of the Cross,
the path that leads to the empty tomb 
and the halls of heaven.

Alas for us Christians if we trust in those
who have no power to save,
rather than praying that God, 
who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.
Father, forgive us,
if we know not what we do.

Lent 5

Readings: Ez 37:12-14; Rm 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45

“Jesus wept.”
Lazarus has died, 
but it is not the thought 
of Lazarus in the tomb
that wakens weeping in Jesus;
it is the sight of Mary mourning,
grief-stricken at the death of her brother.
He weeps not for Lazarus,
for Jesus is the resurrection and the life
and knows that he will soon 
call forth Lazarus from the tomb.
He weeps with Mary and the others
so that he may meet them in their mourning.

Jesus wept.
He weeps because he is truly human—
like us in all things but sin—
and the truly human thing 
to do in the face of death
is to weep together.
The God who in the beginning
gathers the waters into oceans,
who in the waters of the Great Flood,
cleanses the earth,
who at the Red Sea parts the waters
to save his people,
who in the wilderness
brings forth water from the rock,
now draws tears from his human eyes
so to be like us in all things but sin—
not feigning sorrow,
not play-acting humanity, 
but knowing what only a human being can know:
the experience of human grief from the inside.

Jesus wept.
He is “perturbed and deeply troubled,”
because, though sinless,
he still bears the weight of sin,
and the weight of sin is sorrow.
He mourns at the tomb of Lazarus—
not as those who mourn without hope,
for he is himself the world’s hope,
the resurrection and the life—
but still he mourns.
He mourns the sheer fact of death,
“the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations,”
the sign of our exile from the God of life.
He mourns the decay of the flesh 
that God once formed from the dust
and breathed his own Spirit into.
He mourns to see God’s work undone.

Jesus wept.
He weeps because he does not want us 
to weep hopelessly without him.
Jesus stands outside the tomb of Lazarus,
but he knows the day is close at hand
when he will enter into his own tomb
so that the place of death 
might become the place of life.
He wants to dwell in us in our weeping,
to breathe his Spirit in us once again,
to give life to our mortal bodies.
And he wants us to dwell in him,
to be knit together as members of his body,
so that just as he knows our weeping,
we in turn may know his joy.

Jesus wept.
And in weeping he teaches us 
that while we are still journeying in this life
pain and sorrow and hardship remain,
even for those who have been reborn in Christ.
Indeed, for those of us who seek to follow Jesus,
in some sense our sorrow must grow greater, 
for we are called to imitate our Master
in making our own the suffering of the world.
The hunger of the poor,
the pain of the sick,
the fear of those afflicted by war,
the grief of those in mourning,
the uncertainty of the displaced,
the cravings of the addict,
the despair of the faithless,
innocent suffering,
guilty suffering,
all of this must touch our heart,
all of this is given us to bear
together as members of Christ’s body.

Our catechumens, who will be baptized at Easter,
come asking to become members of Christ’s body,
not so that they may leave all weeping behind,
as if being a follower of Jesus 
could magically remove the weight of mortal flesh.
They come so that they may weep within him,
so that they may mourn the world’s pain, 
not as those without hope,
but as those who have died through baptism
and have found in those waters
Christ who is resurrection and life.

This day we are bidden to pray 
for those who will soon be baptized.
We pray for them because the struggle 
to strip off your old self
and clothe yourself in Christ
is something none of us can do alone.
And we must pray for ourselves as well,
for we too are engaged in the daily battle
to live for Christ and not for ourselves,
to let his life grow within us
so that we, in some small way,
bring that life into our world’s 

places of death.
As we draw close to the Easter feast,
the feast of resurrection and life,
let us ask for the grace to mourn,
so that God in his mercy
might have mercy on us all.