Readings: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8; John 20:1-9
Yesterday brought the sobering news
that the United States had surpassed
every other nation in the world
in the number of deaths
from Covid-19.
Even taking into account
the large size of our population,
the number of deaths
in hotspots like New York has been staggering.
And for someone who has lost a loved one
it doesn’t really matter much
what the per capita death rates are;
it is that one death that devastates.
But even as we continue
the seemingly endless journey to peak mortality,
people have begun discussing what it will mean
to “reopen” the country:
to restart our economy,
for people to return to work,
for students to return to school,
for churches and other places of public gathering
to resume ordinary activities.
But one thing is clear:
there will be no sudden return
to so-called normal life.
It may be months still
before public Masses can be celebrated,
before children can go to school,
before we can dine in restaurants.
The idea was floated a few weeks
that Easter would be a nice time
for life to return to normal.
The symbolism, it might seem,
would be lovely.
But, apart from the obvious error involved
in calculating the progress of the pandemic,
and differing opinions on how long
before social distancing measures
can begin to ease up,
I think the idea of Easter as a moment
when everything returns to normal
is a theologically dubious one,
and this for two reasons.
First, it is a mistake to think of Easter
as a moment, as an instant.
Of course, there is a moment
when he who was dead rises from the tomb,
but Easter is not simply
about Jesus’ return to life.
Or, rather, it is about that,
because if it is not about that
it is not about anything.
But it is not only about that.
Easter is the ongoing activity of resurrection
brought about in us by Jesus through the Spirit.
In today’s Gospel,
Mary Magdalen, Peter, and John
all see the empty tomb
but, we are told,
“they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.”
The reality of resurrection
that Jesus lived
was not yet fully real in them.
It seems that resurrection takes time,
and because it takes time
it involves patience,
and patience is our suffering time’s passage.
The raising of Jesus from the dead
is the decisive moment:
a corner is turned,
a new reality does begin,
a new world is opened up,
but all this begins as a tiny seed
planted in the earth of humanity,
and we are still living
through the time of its growth.
Resurrection unfolds slowly
and in often hidden ways;
the new life rises in us
not on our timetable
but on God’s.
Second, it is a mistake to think of Easter
as a return to normal.
As Paul tells us, we do not celebrate this feast
“with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Jesus is not simply resuscitated,
but transformed,
the reign of God is fulfilled in him.
As they come to share in this transformation,
the lives of Jesus’ friends
do not return to normal:
Peter did not return to his nets;
Matthew did not return to his tax collecting.
As the reality of resurrection grows
the world should become for us
stranger and stranger
until the life we live
is taken up completely
into the risen life of Christ.
As resurrection grows within us
moments of unexpected grace
should become the new normal;
acts of extraordinary charity
should become the ordinary stuff of living;
lives lived against death and for God
should become our daily lives.
If Christians truly are an Easter people,
then we who bear the name Christian
can perhaps bear witness to the watching world
about what it truly means to have hope for new life.
In the days and weeks and months ahead
we can let our resurrection faith
inform our daily living.
We can show what it means
not to look for quick fixes
but rather to willingly suffer time’s passage.
We can show what it means
not to hope simply
for a restoration of the status quo,
but to think of how our world
might go forward in ways
that are more just
and more compassionate.
Whatever lies on the other side of Corona Time
is not, to be sure, the reign of God.
But perhaps it can be a world
that is just little kinder, just a little fairer,
just a little more aligned with the truth
that Christ is risen and death is defeated.
May Christ make this new life true in us
and may God have mercy on us all.
