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April 4, 2021Abu Dhabi.
Today we wish each other “Happy Easter”. We take it for granted, that Easter makes us happy. However, is it true? Is not the faith that Christ has risen and that he wants to share his life with us for ever, fading? A few days back, I read from an article that many Catholics throughout the world do not share anymore what we profess in the Creed. We should not be too much surprised about this fact. What we celebrate on Easter was highly contested right from the beginning. Remember the experience of Saint Paul when he passed at Athens. He walked through the town and spoke to all kind of philosophers and other people in the Greek metropolis. As long as he spoke about the religious thirst of the people in Athens and of God “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) he found an interested audience. However, as soon as he came to the topic that Jesus crucified had risen from the dead “some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them” (Acts 17:32-33).
The faith in Jesus Christ as the Risen Lord was and is a provocation. Nobody can verify it in a way that we can say to people: Have a look and convince yourself. We can only listen to the first witnesses who speak to us through the scriptures of the New Testament and through the faithful who throughout the centuries kept alive the message of Easter. Nobody can be forced to be convinced though many reasonable arguments speak in favour of the credibility of the first witnesses. We do not believe because we can have a look into the empty tomb or have an apparition of the risen Lord. We believe because the Lord himself puts into our hearts the gift of faith. While we profess the faith and do what Jesus teaches us, we can experience and verify the truth that he is alive and keeps us alive.
Nowadays, many people are incriminating the Christians of all the sins that can be found in the history of the Church. The result is a kind of a bill of indictment against Christianity. Unfortunately, it is true that too many shameful things have happened and are still happening among and by Christians. On the other hand, we should not forget that since the death and resurrection of Jesus millions of his followers have paid their faithfulness to the Lord with their blood. They were and they are witnesses of love. We can see in their lives the love Jesus has for us. Wherever Christians were faithful to the mandate of the Lord, the world became more human and viable, experienced the light from above, and people who were desperate received hope. Why? Because they believed in what we profess in the preface of the funeral mass: “In Christ the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned … Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended, and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”
All this started on that first Easter when the women went to the tomb and were told by the heavenly messengers: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen” (Lk 24:5). It started when the disciples after many doubts saw the empty tomb and came to believe. It started when the risen Lord himself appeared to them and breathed into them the Holy Spirit. He changed them from coward disciples to courageous witnesses of his death and resurrection. Now the fire was set that they could tell the people: “Death is not the end; there is a life that will last for ever; sin and corruption have not the last word; the last word has the living God “who so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Brothers and sisters in Christ, just after the homily I shall invite you to renew your baptismal vows. Commit yourselves again on this Easter day. For in baptism, we have died to the old sinful human being and were born to a new life. We believe in the risen Lord. Let us now also live as the children of light. Amen.