What are we celebrating?
The simple answer is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord. But we may need to take a step back to appreciate a much bigger picture. We begin with an ancient homily that paints Holy Saturday as the great silence. But it is not an empty silence.
“Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead”. (quoted in CCC#635).
Christ entered the tomb of death in order that the whole of creation since the beginning of time can follow Him out. St Paul likens the Sacrament of Initiation in the same manner that through Baptism, we follow Him into the tomb in order that we may rise with Him. In other words, in Christ’s Resurrection or in His rising from the dead, we are celebrating, more than anything else, our discipleship. In this way, the Resurrection is therefore not only a joyful observance, but it is a powerful call to discipleship.
To be a disciple, we have to re-examine the Resurrection of Jesus in the light of His death. Otherwise, we may risk an empty or vacuous and meaningless celebration. In order that we have a deeper grasp of this Easter grace of the Resurrection, we borrow an idea found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer book on the Cost of Discipleship. He makes a distinction between what he calls “cheap” and “costly” grace. For him,
“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate”.
What experience can we draw from life to grasp the difference. The notion of “cheap” grace can be gleaned from our familiarity with a fact of modern marketing—freebies. Our idea of “free gift” is closer to “a thing” we do not need. Like the free plate from the two tubes of toothpaste we buy. In general we have no attachment to this type of a free gift. If it breaks, it breaks. Usually, when we receive a gift we do not need, we will not know how to value it.
To appreciate the Resurrection, we need to acknowledge the reality of sin. But not in the way that we like to commit them even though that may be true for many of us. In fact, some of us have a love relationship with our favourite sin. What it means is that our admission should take the form of accepting that our sins, individual rather than collective, weigh heavily from the Crown of Thorns to the Cross on Calvary. Christ our Scapegoat and Saviour bore the burden of “MY” offences through the winding streets of Jerusalem and every whip across His enervated Body was a stripe for “MY” sins.
The more we desire to celebrate the Resurrection, the more we ought to recognise the price that was paid for it. Without acknowledgement that our sins put Jesus there, what are we celebrating but cheap grace? Here, admission is not unhealthy guilt. It is not meant to be a dark cloud that continually oppresses us. Perhaps to highlight what it means to have a healthy sense of sin, listen to a common rendition of the Act of Contrition.
“Oh my God, I am sorry for my sins. Because you are so good, with the help of your grace, I will try not to sin again”. The operative word here is “try”. What does it mean to try? At best, it imitates the traditional usage “resolve”. I “will” (not future tense but volitional) not to sin again or I “want” not to sin again. But, instead of a firm resolution, what we have here is a rather detached severance from sin, as if one were doing God a favour. In this case, we are not as sinful as God is pathetically "needy". A rephrase might better express this. “Oh my God, I am sorry for my sins. But let me see, because you are so good, I shall do you a favour. I will try not to sin again”. I can safely say that nobody does that at Confession but the unspoken assumption in the prayer does suggest that.
Why?
This formulation exposes a chink in our self-supposition. We are not that sinful after all. Jesus did die on the Cross but not really for my sins. For others, maybe? The truth is, His death paid the price for “MY” sins just like His Risen Body in the Eucharist pays for the price of “MY” eternal salvation. The Blessed Sacrament is truly the medicine of immortality but if we do not count Christ’s death as the cost for this remedy, then this medicine is of no use to us. Just like the unvalued freebie, it might as well just be a health supplement. Something extra but not intrinsically necessary for our wellbeing and definitely not needed for our salvation.
If that were so, our celebration is but an empty victory. We can have fun, lots of it. Or rather, a lot of “eats” (makan) exemplified by the chocolate bunnies and to be fair, the over- eating happens during Christmas rather than at Easter but the point remains.
Addicted to cheap grace, we all want to be comforted by whatever—food is best, sometimes sins too. Nobody wants to be confronted by the reality who he or she truly is—a sinner. However, costly grace which calls us to follow and submit to Christ whole-heartedly requires an honest admission that we are sinners and are sinful. Thankfully, in light of Christ’s costly grace, the fact of our sinfulness is not the final statement of who we are. What liberates is to know that, like the adulterous woman forgiven by Christ, radical repentance is what makes for a better disciple, a faithful follower and an effective evangelist. Only then can our Easter explode with joy. The greater our celebration, the more profound should our appreciation be for the price of salvation. Thus, be wary for cheap grace is always waiting at the corner as a poor substitution for costly grace. It always makes us feel good, but it does no good in the end. Be more aware though that Christ did not die for nothing. "I" (not so much "we") have been saved to copy and imitate Him. He died so that "I" (not so much "we") may follow Him from tomb to triumph, from sin to salvation and from death to life.
