Easter Sunday
Christ is Risen. Let me say it again for those in the back, CHRIST IS RISEN!
As I type this, I’m listening to a Spotify list of Christian artists forwarded to me by a woman who has helped form my faith since I was in high school. She was a volunteer with our youth ministry program who came to every event, activity, game, choir concert, and school production. She is known by only a nickname at my parent’s house.
Sue spread the Good News of the Gospel much like the Apostles in the days after the Resurrection. Peter in the first reading states that, “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power” Acts 10:36-38. She helped me form my faith, believing in Jesus and witnessing to His holy power. When I was sixteen, I had so many messages coming at me from school, friends, dating, parents. Sue was my rock, and in her quiet evangelization, she sang out Christ’s Alleluia!
And she didn’t just spread the Good News to those who were already on board with the faith, perhaps those whose lives were already peaceful and who wanted to go deeper. She also reached out to those who weren’t in such a place yet. Those who were lacking hope. We hear about Mary Magdalene going to the tomb on Easter Morning, while it was still dark. I think “while it was still dark” is a great metaphor not only for what Mary was about to experience, but what many of my peers came to experience through Sue – that the saving power of the Resurrection was just around the corner.
Recently I’ve been praying about Jesus’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. I think about the emotion, the power, the brokenness and pain of the Apostles and Mary during those days. Then I think about the hope and joy they experienced when they heard the “Good News”. And what “Good News” is that? Not just that Jesus would have a few more weeks on earth to give us some more insights and teachings. It’s far more than that. To sum it up in another favorite verse of mine, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” – John 3:16.
So this Easter Sunday as you’re finishing up your 8th Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg and helping your little brother find his Easter basket, don’t forget the real “Reason for the Season”, to borrow a phrase we usually use around Christmas time. Jesus is Risen! He has defeated sin and death, so that we might have eternal life. If that’s not Good News, I don’t know what is.
