Easter Vigil of the Lord’s Resurrection

Today we celebrate the greatest of all Christian feasts. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us: ‘The resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of the Christian faith,…believed and lived by the first Christian Community as the central truth, handed as fundamental by Tradition……’. St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor 15: 17, ‘If Christ has not been raised from death our faith is futile; we are still in our sins. The resurrection of Jesus gives meaning to the Christian faith and Christian life. Life does not end on Good Friday. At the foot of the Cross it just begins. Its roots start growing and it blooms on the day of resurrection. It instills a new hope and a new out look to life. 

 

In the famous novel “Jonathan Livingston – the sea gull”, the new generation of sea gulls tells Jonathan Livingston who taught them to fly high, and to a new level of consciousness,  “Now we have a reason to live – to learn, to discover, and to be free”. Resurrection gives us the reason to live: “To be free”. Freedom from all bondages that bind our souls, freedom from the clutches of sin and its dominion.

 

Resurrection of Jesus is not an event in history that happened once upon a time in the life of a Master called Jesus. It has been an experience that transformed the whole life of his disciples. It is an experience that changed the track of human history for ever. A tremendous experience, the disciples of Jesus experienced. There is no eye witness to the resurrection of Jesus. Nobody has seen Jesus rising from the dead. Still with total conviction, we hear them proclaim and preach that Jesus is risen from the dead.

 

We read of different encounters of resurrected Jesus with his disciples in the Gospels. They meet him in the closed rooms, on the way, on the sea shore! In different ways! In different forms! He strengthens their faith. He provides them a new way of looking at realities which they were not able to do till then. Their life gets transformed by an experience which had no physical proof available.

 

Two things are worth considering: First of all, the disciples experienced a new level of freedom in their life which until then they were not able to do. The bondages of the body, the chains that bind one to this world, the relations, the fears and aspirations of the mind are broken into pieces. A new level of existence slowly begins to reveal itself to the disciples and through them to the human existence. How is one going to achieve this new level of existence? The real freedom comes through opening up of the doors of one’s existence to unselfish love and unconditional forgiveness. When the doors of one’s heart and soul are kept open to the unencumbered embrace of even the enemy; then that is the point of flight heavenward. That is the moment of resurrection. That is the realm of the resurrected life.  

 

Secondly, the proof of resurrection is the transformed life. The transformed life of the disciples is the only proof of the resurrection of Jesus. The courage and conviction they manifest in later days speak volumes of the reality of resurrection. One divine touch is waiting for us to transform us into new creations. In Johannine version of Resurrection apparition, Jesus calls out to Mary Magdalene, “Mary”. Immediately Mary turns around and calls, “Rabooni (Master)”. She has been talking to the same person for quite some time. But the right moment of transformation came when the call came from the master. It was an immediate “turning around” for Mary. The doors of realization open wide on her face. She runs fast to others to convey the new experience she started experiencing before its warmth subsides. This is resurrection experience.

 

Just as any experience only the person who experienced it will be able to say what it is. But when he starts explaining it, his words fail him since no words of any language are able to convey the pulsations and the throbbing, the warmth and the intimacy of that experience. The more one tries to explain it the more it becomes blank. That is why we don’t find any explanation for the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels.

 

Going through the different narrations of the apparitions of risen Jesus to his disciples given in the four Gospels, one question is raised in our minds. How will Risen Jesus be made known to us today? The Gospels give answer too, when we put together different narrations. Five ways are clearly mentioned: 1. In scriptures; 2. In the peace he gives amidst our brokenness; 3. In the Eucharistic meal; 4. In the communion and togetherness; 5. In the intimacy of our relationship with him.

 

May this Easter be a day of new experiences to us, the experiences of crossing over to real freedom. May we all experience the transformative beginnings of a resurrected life, proclaiming through our deeds than words that we believe in a Master who crossed over from this shore of existence to the other, promising a share in His Kingdom to everyone who opens up one’s heart to love and forgiveness. Happy Easter.