This Man God Raised on the Third Day and Granted that He Be Visible

04-09-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC

On this day we celebrate the glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. On Good Friday, we commemorated the Passion and Death of Jesus on the Cross. We recalled the event when the Divine Redeemer willingly offered Himself as a sacrifice that would pay our debt of sin, reconcile humanity to God, and effect the restoration of our friendship with our Creator. We know that He had promised not to remain in the grave but to rise from the dead on the third day so as to destroy death, the consequence of sin, and afford us hope for a life with Him in eternity. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, fulfilled this promise on Easter Sunday.

St. John credits Mary of Magdala with the singular privilege of being the first person who discovered the Resurrection. While the eleven Apostles were hiding for fear of the Jews, Mary’s love for Jesus overwhelmed whatever fears she might have had and compelled her to hurry to His tomb in order to anoint His body, a common practice at that time done to honor the body of a loved one and to ensure temporary preservation of the body. It was in her attempt to carry out this act of charity and respect on the body of Her Lord at an extremely dangerous time (it was early in the morning when it was still dark) that Mary became the first disciple to stumble on the truth of the Resurrection. Our celebration of the same Resurrection would be meaningless, or at least incomplete, if it was without tangible acts of sacrificial charity to others. It is only when we strip ourselves of fear and generously apply ourselves to generous sharing of time, talent and treasure that our celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection would make any meaning in our lives and to others.

The Resurrection of Jesus also invokes an upsurge of hopeful living in the individual life of every believer in our community and in the Universal Church. There are times when we experience the presence of repeated Good Friday moments, there are individual, family and faith community moments of trial when the crucibles of financial, emotional and physical difficulty seem to surround us. There are also times when our spiritual lives encounter a seemingly unending “dark night of the soul,” we may even be driven to the brink of despair by something undesirable happening to us or someone we love. You or someone you know may be encountering one of such moments right now. The annual celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus is God holding out the light of hope to us so as to snatch us out of the brink of despair. It is a reminder that if we “die” with Jesus, we shall rise with Him, a reminder that after Good Friday and the darkness of the grave comes the glorious light of Easter.

Thus, every Christian is invited to embrace hope - hope in a better and more meaningful life in this world, hope for a renewed relationship with God, and hope in our own resurrection to eternal life with Jesus when He calls us. May Easter bring us this joyful hope and may the light of this same hope be manifested in our witnessing of charity to our community and the world.

Please be kind and may God bless you.

Happy Easter!

Fr. Manasseh