Easter - We Are Risen !

When I was in High School, I was fortunate to have as my public speaking teacher a man by the name of Mr. Cassidy. He was the designer of the Ho-Hum Outline.  It was a guaranteed method of creating a speech that would keep your audience's attention.  One of the steps is Ho Hum, thus the clever name!  This step is to engage your listeners so as to get them to buy into the fact that you are worth listening to.  I mention him because I know if you've been to church either for the Easter Vigil last night or at one of the masses today you probably have heard the words, "Easter People." You probably heard how we are the Easter People and how Jesus rose from the dead.  But did you really consider what this means for you, personally? 

We all will die someday.  The thought of death is one we push out of our mind.  As a matter of fact, death is something that happens to someone else, not to me.  We go to a funeral and in America most often we gaze at the body of the guest of honor, we offer our condolences to the bereaved family.  Our next task is, if possible, to get the heck out of there as soon as possible. The body in the casket hits too close to home, we know that someday that we will be the one that is getting a grand send off.  That day is coming all too soon and we do not want to be reminded of it.  Personally, what I do not like about this death thing is the fact that when I am busy taking my last breaths, the world will be continuing without a thought about what is happening to me.  It is this continuance of routine that really offends me.  I can accept the fact that all of my "stuff" will pass either to another person or end up in a landfill somewhere, I have no problem with that.  I just think that while I am dying, should there be a family celebrating a birthday? Should another family be leaving on a Disney Cruise?  Should my neighbor treat the day as just another work day?  I know that this sounds very silly and self-centered, but hey, that is what is inside of me. 

The messy death of Jesus would have meant very little if that is where the story of Jesus ended. We know not only did it not end there but that His story is never ending. He took upon Himself all of our sins.  He turned our disobedience into obedience. He then did something that no other man had done.  He rose from the dead in a body that people could recognize.  The one who was dead was now alive.  Now, while Jesus was on the cross, the temple crew that was standing nearby mocked Him by saying, "He helped others, He cannot help Himself!"  On the third day, He proved them wrong by rising from the dead.  He stayed on earth another forty days.  He ate with the apostles.  He walked to Emmaus.  He forgave Peter.  He removed the doubt from doubting Thomas. Then he physically rose up to heaven and lives there at the right hand of God. 

What He did, we also will do.  On that Easter morning when the angel rolled away the stone he defeated the final enemy of the human race, death.  When we die, we will immediately be judged. We will choose our destiny, heaven, purgatory, or hell depending on how we lived our life here on earth.  Heaven will be a place of complete joy and happiness.  There will be no sorrow, not a bit of discord or hate.  We will recognize our family and our friends.  We will know people we did not know on earth.  We will be with the saints we prayed to and we will know t the complete love of God.  If we juge ourselves to be not ready we will choose to go to purgatory to prepare ourselves to be received by God. There will be intense joy and intense suffering in purgatory.  The suffering in purgatory will be the fact we are separated from God.  The intense joy will be the knowledge that we will soon be joining Him in heaven.  If we choose hell, I am afraid that there would be no turning back.  The fires of hell are forever and there is no hope of seeing God.  But then again, those that go there made their choice here in life when they turned their backs on God and lived according to their own desires.  The pains of hell are enhanced by the knowledge that the darkness of the loss of God is for eternity. 

The Rising of Jesus from the dead means that we too will rise from the grave.  We too will have a glorified body that will be assumed into heaven. On the last day, that which was subject to corruption will be restored.  The sea will give up her dead, graves will open and all of us will be finally judged and in our new, perfected, glorified bodies will be taken to heaven. 

This is what being an Easter People means.  Death, while still inevitable, looses its power over us and together we will join the angels and saints in heaven. Being an Easter People, we no longer fear death as for us, life is not ended, it is just changed.  Now, does that mean we should do everything possible to hasten our death? No of course not.  Each of us, man, woman, boy, or girl, have a mission on earth, a job that no one else in the universe can do and we have to do it.  Our life is a precious gift that was given to us by a loving and caring God.  All God asks of us is that we try, we may not always succeed.  I am in a choir at my church.  I have the devil of a time reading music, but our leader just asks that we try.  Over the years I have gotten better.  God asks us to try, to work to improving.  We will never be perfect and God knows this.  This is why He has provided us with the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Not so that we can sin with impunity but we can reflect and repent and come back into fellowship with Him when we see the error of our ways and He for His part will always welcome us back.  

Death, oh death, where is thy sting?