One might presume
that a responsible homilist
charged with the daunting task
of preaching the most important feast of the Church year would prepare for this awesome ministry
by pouring over the readings and ritual texts,
consulting appropriate biblical and liturgical commentaries, constructing a meaningful interpretation of the mystery,
and then looking for ways of assuring us that if we live well Resurrection is our undeniable and well-earned future.
While that chronology makes sense to me
it seldom works out that way in the winding path
that typically characterizes my homily preparation.
One contributing factor is that, having taught
and preached this feast for five decades,
the biblical and liturgical texts
are familiar and trusted friends.
More crucial for me, however,
is that the solemnity of Easter proclaims a mystery
that is larger than the feast and extends well beyond today–
a mystery not simply focused on the future,
but rather relentlessly confronting the present.
Let’s be honest: mysteries cannot be explained,
from well-intentioned homilists to fool-hearty theologians.
In his novel Saint Francis, author Nikos Kazantzakis
puts this Easter reflection on the lips of the poor man of Assisi:
“[E]very year at Easter I used to watch Christ’s Resurrection.
[A]ll the faithful would gather around his tomb and …
weep inconsolably, beating on the ground to make it open
and behold, in the midst of lamentation the tombstone crumbled to pieces …
Christ sprang from the earth and ascended to heaven.
There was only one year I did not see him resurrected;
that year a theologian of consequence,
a graduate of the university of Bologna came to us
he mounted the pulpit and began to elucidate the resurrection
for hours on end;
he explained … until our heads began to swim
and that year the tombstone did not crumble
and I swear to you no one saw the resurrection.”
Ouch! Good thing I am neither a theologian of consequence
nor a graduate of the University of Bologna.
Rather, I am a believer like you
who struggles to embrace the incomprehensible,
to live in the midst of ambiguity and too much suffering,
and is still willing to wager my faith on the resurrection.
Or in the words of my sainted mother, after we buried Dad:
“it had all better be true.”
Like her, I am counting on that.
Recently I have been reading a provocative biography
of Albert Einstein.
If you know anything about his personal life,
you might not think that this subversive genius
is an appropriate reference in an Easter homily
or any other for that matter.
He was a professed religious non-believer,
did not accept the idea of life after death,
and commented “one life is enough for me.”
Still, I find Einstein a refreshing guide
when contemplating mysteries:
something he single-mindedly did his entire life.
What fascinates a non-scientist like me
is that he tackled the mysteries of physics
essentially through mind-experiments–
as there existed at the time no equipment or laboratories
that could empirically prove his theories.
At the age of 16 he imagined chasing a beam of light:
scientific daydreaming that contributed immensely
to his theory of relativity.
Then there were all those thought experiments
about rapidly moving trains
and elevators accelerating through space.
What is most astounding for me
is that such exercises of the mind
required virtually no new empirical data.
Einstein largely excavated what was already known
imaginatively rearranged it,
and voila – astounding truths were revealed.
Now at this point, some of you might be wondering
if I am suggesting that the resurrection is a mind experiment
similar to those that brought Einstein to the theory of relativity:
the simple answer is no.
Resurrection is not a mind experiment.
But I do believe it is a heart experiment:
an idea from Einstein himself.
When reflecting on his vocation he wrote:
“The state of mind which enables [one] to do work of this kind … is akin to that of the religious worshipper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.“[i]
This heart experiment we call Easter was birthed
in the early community
bequeathed to us through the scriptures
and rebirthed over the centuries
through rituals and symbols, frescoes and chants.
In it, the community took what they already knew:
that their Rabbi was anointed with God’s spirit,
he went about doing good,
was a source of healing and enlightenment,
and was unjustly executed on the jib of a tree,
as Peter well summarizes in the first reading.
In the wake of that violent execution,
the resilient Spirit of the Only-Begotten,
which had confronted them for the 3 years
he walked among them,
re-possessed their hearts,
prodding them to fresh believing
that he was risen from the dead:
something none of them witnessed.
Yep, Renaissance paintings to the contrary,
no one witnessed the rising of God’s Son:
a point underscored in today’s Gospel
replete with tales about an apostolic foot race
an empty tomb,
rearranged burial cloths
and little understanding.
What is strikingly absent is the Risen One.
Simply put, Jesus never shows up
though Easter has already dawned.
While not exactly a spoiler alert
in the Easter tales unfolding over the next 7 weeks,
the Risen Christ IS revealed,
but only and persistently through personal encounters:
–With Mary of Magdala in the garden
–Then the apostolic fraidy-cats hiding in the back of the Jerusalem Hilton
–Surprising the couple that had resigned from discipleship and was returning to the abandoned fig shop in Emmaus
–Brilliantly culminating in the beach picnic with demoralized Peter, trying to recover the art of fishing which he obviously had lost.
This dynamic of encountering the Spirit of the Risen Christ
not only ignited the original heart experiment we call Easter
but fuels its enduring power.
And it endures because Resurrection and Easter
are siblings but not synonyms.
Christ’s Resurrection was a once and for all event.
Easter, on the other hand, is not a date on the calendar
but an abiding spirituality lavished upon us in baptism
when, as Paul reminds us, we were raised with Christ.
The enduring mystery of Easter is that we can still encounter
the Risen Lord.
Welcome to Eucharist!
In his unsettling “Manifesto,”
Wendell Berry raised his prophetic voice against all things
that disable us from encountering the Risen One
and alienate us from our baptismal legacy.
He rails against all those un-Easter tendencies, when writing:
“… every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what we
have not encountered we have not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
and in a final summation he bluntly advises: “Practice resurrection.”
The followers of Jesus practiced resurrection,
and their dogged commitment to living an Easter spirituality
and passing it on from one generation to the next
– usually at great cost –
is why we stand missioned to practice resurrection today.
Unfortunately in this moment it seems there are
too many who prefer practicing crucifixion, played out in
the starvation ravaging across the Sudan & Congo,
and the violence rampaging across the streets
of Ramallah and Chicago.
Thus I fear that without our commitment
to metaphorically practicing resurrection,
to extending Easter through our embodiment
of the justice vision and dignity-affirming spirit of the Risen Christ,
Golgotha will only amplify,
the innocent will continue to be annihilated,
and the Easter mystery will fade into a nostalgic memory.
Richard Powers’s novel Bewilderment
features 9-year-old Robin,
the warm, kindhearted son of a widowed astrobiologist
who suffers from several neurodivergent conditions.
His mental deterioration is a descent into hell.
In an effort to keep him off psychoactive drugs,
the father turns to an experimental neurofeedback treatment
to bolster Robin’s emotion control;
The twist is that this treatment uses a scan of his
deceased mother’s brain, her preserved emotional state,
to enable Robin to recover his wellbeing.
The neural mapping of his Mother’s emotional legacy
not only calms her son but recreates him,
rescues him from emotional hell,
and resurrects his well-being.
The lead neuroscientist notes:
“Well-being is a virus. One self-assured person at home in this world can infect dozens of others. [Who] Wouldn’t … want to see an epidemic of infectious well-being.“
Today’s eucharist is not an exercise in neural- but in Jesus- feedback
that summons us to embrace the “Jesus virus”–
to recalibrate us
for practicing resurrection in a world
too often hell-bent on crucifixion.
In his poem “Easter Communion,”
Gerard Manley Hopkins
cajoles us to “Breathe Easter now.”
Our prayer this solemn feast is that, with expanded lungs,
we might inhale the intoxication of the Easter gift
and exhale it through our relentless resurrectional practicing,
so that the Easter mystery becomes an epidemic
of grace, and hope, and peace
for the glory of God, and the salvation of the world,
Through Christ, the Risen one, forever and ever.
[i] From “Principles of Research,” a speech delivered at Max Planck’s 60th birthday celebration, 1918; published in Mein Weltbild, by Albert Einstein (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934); reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, by Albert Einstein (New York: Crown, 1954), pp. 224-227.