First Easter Sunday

The Resurrection of the Lord.

March 31, 2024.

Cycle B.

Acts 10:30a, 37-43; Ps 118: Col 3: 1-14: Sequence: Jn 20: 1-9.

He saw and believe

In Mexico, in a little village, there was a hardworking priest calling Juanito. He was very responsible with his people and often fulfilled his duties at them. However, usually, parishioners were dissatisfied with him because the priest was always angry and had a bad character. The priest had all the knowledge about theology, liturgy, and many other things, but he was not happy. Parishioners used to gossip among them “Maybe Father Juanito is wrong with his vocation”. Once he was preaching about Jesus’ resurrection and the mysteries of the Passover. But he forgot the most important element in his preaching, telling parishioners that the resurrection is not a historical event. Perhaps, his unhappiness had this explanation, he doesn't have the experience of resurrection.

In the Psalm we listened to the affirmation “By the Lord has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes.” The experience from the psalmist is interesting because he finds God in the world things. It means, the experience of God is in our daily life. This beautiful Psalm wants to share that God is appearing around us; how many times is God appearing to us and we don’t want to see? Resurrecting with Jesus today requires that I leave my attachments and idols like money, pride, falsehood as means to get a more freer life. When we can see that God gives me life, a job, health, family, and many other things, we can see that evil is defeated by God because our happiness do not come from material things; our happiness come from the gifts of God. Jesus raised and defeated sin and unhappiness, but we need to transcend the material world. The disciples found Jesus by sharing their life with the other people, with God's gifts. All this means resurrecting with God.     

Today we remember that Jesus’ resurrection is not a historical event, but an experience. We also remember that to be a new person requieres to die to sin. There is no resurrection if before there is no death. It means that when we die to ourselves and we are born to others, then we are resurrecting with Jesus. This is a daily work, but in this way we can live in the Reign of God. Jesus invites us to follow him: “Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous: The prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.”  

Brothers and sisters, we have a good example today in the Gospel. We first listened to this woman who went to the tomb of Jesus early in the morning and saw the stone removed. She experienced the resurrection event, and she went to inform to the apostles. Jesus’ resurrection change her life. How? let us focus on this point: although the world was the same after Jesus’ resurrection, the heart and mind of  Mary of Magdala changed. At the beginning she thought that someone had taken the Lord from the tomb, so she went to tell Peter and the other apostle, and they quickly went to the tomb. They saw some signs: “The burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head. The text said that the disciple whom Jesus loved “saw and believed”. The journey of those apostles is also our own journey, sometimes we have signs from Jesus, and he calls us to believe in him and change our hearts.

Sometimes we do not know the ways of the Lord, but he gives us signs or facts, like an empty tomb. We can interpret them and believe like the apostles: “They did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” We can let God impact us. He makes all things new. The world is hardly going to change by itself, but we can change the world; we can see a different world, with full things from God. We see the signs from God and that the resurrection fills up our lives.

We are celebrating today the resurrection of Jesus, but it is not only his resurrection, it is also ours. We listened the first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles; it is Peter sharing to Cornelius’ family about his experience of encountering the empty tomb. Peter said, “We are witnesses of all that he did […].” Remembering all the good things that Jesus did to the people, like sharing food with the poor, healing the sick, preaching the Kingdom of God. Peter adds: “We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”  The words from Peter remind us of Jesus: it is God who continues to give life to us. Peter found a resurrected Jesus. Peter shared this message with Cornelius because he understood that for God there are not borders; the Resurrected wants to raise in everyone. All the people are called to be resurrect with Jesus; in this way, all people can experience a new life from him. “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, […].” Let as go to do the same things but now with the resurrected love; we are going to make true visible through our happiness and good gifts.