There are celebrations in the course of our lives that we routinely
celebrate and observe perennially.
Birthdays, anniversaries are good examples. These somehow remind us that we are getting
on in years, and that we have made it through another 365 days. If we want to be technical about it, we could
simply say that it was a marking of the earth’s coming back to the point in its
orbital path around the sun to reach the place where it was exactly a year ago.
Religious events that are celebrated and observed on an annual basis
have a dimension that goes beyond just marking of an ‘aging’ of something. If they are truly fundamental to our very
being, celebrating them and observing them in a purposeful and meaningful way
brings their importance to the fore of our consciousness. More importantly, they remind us of why we
believe what we believe, especially when the core of our belief is something
that is strongly incongruent to the ways of contemporary thinking and
philosophies.
Yesterday, the Christian world celebrated once again the bedrock of
our faith and belief – that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead after his
brutal and ignominious crucifixion three days before on Golgotha, on the
outskirts of Jerusalem. The celebration
of Easter marks this momentous event, and we as Christians become terribly
impoverished if we cannot say with great clarity that this is what gives
Christianity its unique and outstanding position amongst all other faith
beliefs.
If our belief in Jesus Christ is that he was merely a good teacher
of ethics, moral codes and a very holy person, and that is why we are
Christians, I’m afraid we are basing our belief on shaky grounds. It would then mean that Jesus was just a very
good man. And there have been so many
good and morally upright men through the ages.
If this is the case, then the argument that “all religions are the
same”, which is an argument that “spiritual but not religious” people spew
cannot be seen as flawed. There must be
something about Christianity that empowers it to be so unique, so singularly
exceptional that gives a Christian a confidence not just in life, but in death,
which is the last bastion of anyone’s life.
The fact of the empty tomb of Christ has then to be the reason par
excellence for our justification of calling Jesus not just a good man, not just
a moral man, not just a holy man, but God.
No other person in the history of humankind has won the victory over
death, and only God can defeat death. That
he calls us to follow him so that we too can have life eternal like he did is
the promise that he gives to all Christians.
However, this is not a promise that comes without a price. He paid for it dearly with his life, and the
way to this promise of eternal life is to live as he lived and to love as he
loved – right to the very end.
Perhaps we don’t appreciate enough the enormity of the price Jesus
paid for us to have this hope in our lives of eternal life. His triumph was not just a singular one of
life over death. It was a culmination of
all the other triumphs of Jesus as well – in triumphing over death, he also
triumphed over doubt, fear and loneliness.
The empty tomb vindicated his belief that in life, it is always better
to give yourself over to love than to hatred and bitterness, always better to be
charitable than to be selfish, always better to live with forgiveness than to live
for revenge, always better to live in honesty and truth than to resort to lying
and deception.
Simply basking in the fact that Jesus did all that isn’t enough for
us Christians. If Jesus says that he is
the way, the truth and the life, then it has to mean that our lives have to
mirror these triumphs as well if we are to emerge from the sealed tombs of our
lives.
This is germane and apposite for any life that is seriously
Christian. Otherwise our Christianity
may only be one that is just nominal at best.
The price that Jesus paid had a great payoff – he walked out of the tomb
and left sin and death in his wake.
Death was conquered. If we want
to follow him out of our tombs, we too need to triumph over the same challenges
as Jesus, doing it with great love.
May you, my dear readers, have a blessed and holy Easter. The Lord has risen! Alleluia!
Blessed and Holy Easter to you!
ReplyDelete“The importance of celebrating Easter repeatedly”
ReplyDeleteOn one of my trips balik kampung I chanced upon a slim volume of work for personal reflection for Lent and Easter based on the wisdom of Bishop Fulton Sheen. So this Lent I tried to assiduously put into practice a brief reflection exercise daily. When I read your post today, the word - “repeatedly” immediately put me in mind of the words of Bishop Sheen especially the following paragraph, written as usual in “vintage Sheen”
{There was a beautiful monotony in the story of Christ’s life; thirty years obeying - not one year; three years teaching - not one year; three hours redeeming - not on hour.And as he lived he taught, and all his wisdom could be summed up in the words, “Do it again.”There was the monotony of sacrifice - “Take up your cross daily, and follow me”; the monotony of kindness - “If one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other”; the monotony of mercy - “How often should we forgive? Aye,till seventy times seven times”;…..the monotony of sacrificial thoughtfulness - “Do this in commemoration of me”; the monotony of prayer - “And he prayed for the third time”.}
And Bishop Sheen calls this the ROMANCE OF REPETITION…..and that seems to be what you are actually advocating……for repetition keeps us focused on our goal of eternity.
In another verse, he stressed on this great truth that Our Resurrected Lord revealed to Mary Magdalene i.e. “that He was no longer to be seen under the form of time and in the world of sensations, but only by the soul and in the world of eternity……..” and so each Easter, we need to stress strongly the Eternity Of Easter…….the citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven - (won for us at such great price) - whereby the Risen Christ sits eternally at the right hand of God. We need this repetition…………..lest we forget !
God bless u, Fr.
tessa