Jesus Christ is risen; the angels rejoice and life is freed from the clutches of eternal death.
The different Gospel accounts after Good Friday provide two clear indications that the Resurrection has taken place. Firstly, the tomb is empty. Secondly, Jesus appeared to certain people. Logically, one can argue that an empty tomb merely proved that something did happen like stealing a body and hiding it but what we believe to be the Resurrection has been corroborated by the records of Jesus appearing to some people.
What can the empty tomb and the appearances teach us?
The tomb is a symbol of our human limitations. When we die, we are entombed and there in the enclosure, we suffer the ravages of decay (cremation is just sped-up decomposition) and the oblivion of time. Whereas the empty tomb is a token of our human possibilities. When Selena Gomez sang in 2014 that “the heart wants what it wants”, she may have echoed Blaise Pascal’s “the heart has its reason which reason knows nothing of”. All these expressions about the heart’s own reason reveal that the human heart has been created for the infinite. As such, we always long to go beyond the limits that are imposed by this earthly life.
In other words, an empty tomb signals the fulfilment of the potential that cannot be accomplished in this life. The possibilities that are opened up by the Resurrection are answers to the narrow ideologies of materialism and scientism which seemed to have gripped our consciousness.
The Resurrection is a vision of life that reconciles so many of the imperfections imposed by earthly limitations. The existential angst of our generation is perhaps fuelled by a fear that death would mark the end of all possibilities. Think of an important relationship that needs to be repaired. If there were no Resurrection, one would be hard-pressed to repair what was broken for fear that once dead, there would be no chance of reconciliation. But through the Resurrection, when freed from the yoke of our human constraints, we will have the opportunity to make up for what could not be attained here on earth.
Imagine the sense of freedom and surrender knowing that failure is not the final chapter because the Lord of Life-after-this-life can bring about the needed closure that we have always desired. Reflect on the mistakes we have made in life. For those who have married the wrong person or did not have the courage to propose and missed the boat. Maybe, recall the injustice you suffered and it is accompanied by a restlessness that flows from a despondency that you have been victimised by your superior or employer or even country. So many of us struggle with the disillusionment of being betrayed by a country because we happen to have the wrong skin colour. People do not just migrate for money’s sake. Instead, it is not easy to live with this persistent hurt that you are disadvantaged simply because of your race.
Thus, the Resurrection provides a viable alternative to those otherwise weighed down and crushed by life. For example, a person with a congenital condition that renders life meaningless. Autism is a good illustration. What value does an autistic child have judging by the ability to produce? This corrective mechanism is not a pie in the sky, a kind of consuelo de bobo, or a pacifier. The Resurrection gives hope because it is not hemmed in by what we have no control over—life. In the earlier mentioned case of the unresolved hostility in relationship, the Resurrection provides the possibility that resolution can take place even after death. It is true that death puts an end to the time the individual has been granted for embracing God’s grace or rejecting it. However, with the Resurrection, there is a chance that our prayers can assist the soul along the path of reconciliation and therefore salvation.
The Resurrection guarantees that those who are spiritually weak are not entirely lost. It offers us the great prospect of rising with the Lord even if our lives here are incomplete and unfulfilled. Those denied justice in this life will reap the justice that is rightfully theirs in the next life. The Resurrection allows us to trust that God will give us what we have missed here on earth. Perhaps this is the kind of “democracy”, the type of fairness that we are unaccustomed to because our vision is heavily infused with a materialism or laden with a scientism that is incapable of peering beyond the veil of death.
The Lord appearing to certain people is an invitation to become a people of the Resurrection. This brings us to the heart of the Easter Solemnity, baptism. We have fewer than 10 baptisms for both Mandarin and English speakers. This raises the question if we truly are a Resurrection people. If we were, then we may not be as convincing as we should be. While quality is important but the pathetic number may just reveal our poverty of faith in the Resurrection. The entire premise of our belief is based on the Resurrection. If Christ did not rise from the dead, then everything we do would be a sham. Since we proclaim that He rose from the dead, then our lives must exude this Resurrection faith.
This faith proclaims that nothing, not even our sins, can ever separate us from God’s love. In fact, the price of that love was paid with the life of Christ, His Son. He died so that we may have the chance to rise to eternity. A Resurrection people returns His love by breaking forth from the prison of sins.
Secondly, daring to live and love despite the unfairness of this world is to trust that God will have the final word, and not death. No matter how we dress this earth up as heaven, it is not and it is never going to be. We trust and will not be cowed by death because the Resurrection is hope and encouragement in the valley of tears, sorrows and pains. God will always be victorious no matter what.
Finally, faith in the Risen Lord guarantees our own Resurrection. We will rise with Him. Those who believe will not be lost because He will not allow it. The caveat is that we must continue to eat the Bread of Life in preparation for the Resurrection. Jesus, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, continues to nourish us with His Sacraments, most especially in the Eucharist which makes Holy Communion not just a Viaticum. It is unquestionably the food of and strength for the Resurrection. In conclusion, ever since that Sunday, the Risen Christ has been present to us and through a vigorous sacramental life, He invites us to join Him in the Resurrection. Alleluia.
