“The Joy of the Resurrection” by Brian Flanagan

“The Joy of the Resurrection” by Brian Flanagan

Easter Sunday

Have you ever watched the World Series on TV? (that’s the Championship of Major League Baseball for those of you who prefer to watch Curling or Quidditch…)  At the end, there is a winning team and a losing team.  The winners are jumping for joy and the losers are hanging their heads in shame.  The winners are popping the corks on bottles of champagne to celebrate, and the losers are getting ready for a long trip home.

Yet the losing team will still congratulate the winners and acknowledge that it was a “good game”.  This might be the end of their season this year, but there’s always next year, and there’s always the hope of one day winning the championship for themselves.

Now let’s look at Good Friday.  This was the ultimate showdown between good and evil.  Between God and the Devil.  Between Life and Death.  And it wasn’t looking good for the home team.  It wasn’t even a close game.  Death was up 6 to 0 and pitching a no-hitter, and Life was about to strike out for good.  Then Life made the greatest comeback in the history of the game.  Jesus rose from the dead by his own power on Easter Sunday.  The Living God could not remain in death.

Unlike the losing World Series team, however, Death doesn’t have the hope of what next season will bring.  It’s over.  It’s finished.  Christ has destroyed Death forever.  There’s nothing that can match the sound of Hell crying out in utter defeat at the Resurrection.  St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians gives one of the most poetic taunts of Death in all of Scripture:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.  Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?”

For us, the Resurrection doesn’t just mean that we have the hope of eternal life with Christ in heaven; it means that even in this life, Christ can bring life from death.  He can bring good out of suffering.  He can bring hope from despair.

Since we have this great hope both for this life and the next, our lives should reflect it!  Think how overjoyed Moses and the Hebrews must have been when they marched through the Red Sea on dry land and were freed from their slavery in Egypt.  How much more joyful should we be since we are freed from our slavery to sin and death?

During this Easter Season, every time you eat a jelly bean or stuff your face with chocolate bunnies, remember to let even these small things remind you of the Joy of the Resurrection and of the hope that we have in Christ.  If we really enter into this joy, people will notice.  And as St. Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.”