| Jesus
Christ is risen
Jesus Christ our Lord is alive! Jesus was raised from death! This is what
the Bible says. This is what the Apostle’s Creed says. This is what
we usually sing on Easter Sunday: “Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth…The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our
Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.” This
is what we Christians believe.
But then, that is not what the newspapers say. What we read in the newspapers
are reports of kidnapping, rape and murder, of graft and corruption, of
sufferings and miseries of innocent people across our land. Death and
sin and evil seem not to be conquered yet. They continue to make the headlines
each day.
Now, we may ask, is the truth of the Risen Christ meant only for people
who close their eyes to the hard realities of life? Is there really a
connection between the news and the Good News, between the Kingdom of
God and the kingdom of this world?
The resurrection is one of the most important aspects of our Christian
faith. Without faith that Jesus was raised from the dead, perhaps there
would be no Christianity. It was not the ethical teachings of Jesus nor
his noble death that gave birth to the Christian church which spread throughout
the Roman Empire. Rather, it was the news of his resurrection.
It was when the first Christians believed in the Risen Christ that they
looked back to ask about the meaning of his birth, of his life, and of
his death. Apostle Paul was right when he wrote to the Christians in Corinth,
saying: “If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion
and you are still lost in your sins. It would also mean that the believers
in Christ who have died are lost. If our hope in Christ is good for this
life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all
the world” (I Cor.15:17-19 ). Indeed, how would the so-many victims
of injustice in this world obtain justice if there would be no hope for
the resurrection?
The earliest confession summarizing the whole faith of the first Christians
was the confession that “Jesus is Lord” - a title conferred
on him because of his resurrection. Sometimes the church would make the
cross the center of its faith. Of course, this is not totally wrong. The
Risen Lord is no other than the Suffering Servant who gave himself for
us. But the cross is an appropriate symbol for the Christian faith only
if it is an empty cross. The foundation and center of the Christian faith
is not death but life; not tragedy, but victory beyond tragedy; not a
gloomy fascination with a dead sacrifice, but a triumphant faith in the
Living Lord.
Jesus had been raised to life! This is where the Christian faith begins.
And for us Christians, it is the one event in history, which gives meaning
to all history, including our own.
Easter morning
Turning now to our Biblical text in Matthew 28:1-10, we are told about
that early Sunday morning when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went
to see the tomb of Jesus. Then, suddenly there was a violent earthquake.
And an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled the stone away,
and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were
white as snow. The guards were so afraid that they trembled and became
like dead men.
An angel is believed to be a messenger of God. That is precisely what
the word angel means - a messenger. The dramatic descriptions of what
happened - like the violent earthquake, the lightning appearance, the
white clothes, the stone rolled away, and the trembling guards - all these
speak of the importance and urgency of the message that the angel had
come to proclaim. It is a powerful message that no one, not even the guards
nor the huge stone could hinder its proclamation. It is a message that
everyone should listen to.
This is the same message that I would like to share with you. It is a
threefold message that comes from the Risen Christ through the angel.
It is a message for the women who visited the tomb of Jesus. It is also
a message for all of us who remember and celebrate the Risen Christ.
You must not be afraid
First of all, through our Biblical text, our Risen Lord is saying to us,
“You must not be afraid! He has been raised!” These were the
words of the angel to the women (v.5). Perhaps, Mary Magdalene and the
others were still overwhelmed by fear when they went to see the tomb of
Jesus on that resurrection morning. But we may say that at least they
had overcome their fear a little bit. Unlike the men disciples of Jesus,
these women were able to muster enough courage to go and see the tomb
of this dangerous person, an enemy of the state, even if they knew that
soldiers were guarding his tomb. Who would not be afraid after seeing
their Lord and Master being arrested, underwent a mock trial, tortured
and finally crucified? The disciples had to run for their own lives. Who
knows, they might be the next to be crucified.
With the imposition of Pax Romana (Roman Peace) under Augustus Ceasar,
the Jewish people had been living in fear. Palestine was heavily militarized.
The people must have to follow the wishes of the Roman authorities and
their local collaborators. Anyone caught disturbing the Roman Peace would
be considered a rebel of the Roman Empire and would be meted out the capital
punishment of crucifixion. Death was used to instill fear in the hearts
of people.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was accused of being a disturber of Roman Peace.
As a matter of fact, he was accused of many things. He was accused of
claiming to be the Messiah, the one who would come to liberate the people
from their Roman oppressors (cf.Lk.24:21). He was accused of claiming
to be the King of the Jews(Jn.19:19). And this would mean that he usurped
the authority of King Herod, the one who was appointed by the Roman Empire
as King of the Jews. He was accused of misleading the people and inciting
them not to pay taxes to the Roman Empire (cf.Mt.22:17). From the eyes
of the Roman and Jewish authorities, Jesus indeed was a public enemy number
one. And, therefore, he must be crucified.
Jesus was a victim of false accusations and mistrial. The truth of the
matter is that he came to proclaim in words and in deeds the truth of
God’s Kingdom by curing the sick, forgiving and accepting sinners,
giving hope to the poor and outcasts of society, and challenging the hypocrisies
of the powers-that-be. His message was so powerful that it had shaken
the very foundations of the Jewish religion and of the Roman Empire. Hence,
the powers-that-be were threatened by the truth that he proclaimed, and
by the life that he lived.
Jesus knew from the very start that faithfulness to God’s mission
would mean crucifixion. He was tempted to give up many times. But each
time, he also said: “Worship the Lord your God, and He alone you
shall serve” (Mt.4:10), “Not my will but your will be done”(Mt.26:39).
And now that he had accomplished God’s mission, he was saying to
his disciples through the angel, “You must not be afraid!”
Jesus was raised from death. This would mean that death, which the Roman
Empire used to instill fear in the hearts of people, is not really the
end. The life Jesus lived is more powerful than death; it is a life that
goes beyond death.
In our time, perhaps no one had ever understood the meaning of this message
more fully than the witnesses, for instance, in the impeachment trial
of former President Estrada and other sensational crimes in our country.
The witnesses knew that they might follow the way of death, the way of
Dacer and Corbito, if they would take the witness stand. But nevertheless
they had the courage to stand and proclaim the truth. The media people
and political activists, who were killed for exposing the truth, knew
the meaning of this message. They believed that death is not the end.
That life is more powerful than death. That truth in the end is more powerful
than falsehood.
Perhaps, there would also be a time in our life when we are confronted
by the truth, and we are called upon to bear witness to it. When that
moment comes, may the God of life, who raised Jesus from the dead, remind
us: “You must not be afraid!”
Come and see
Secondly, our Risen Lord is also saying to us through our Biblical text:
“Come and see.” The angel of the Lord said to Mary Magdalene
and the other women: “Come and see the place where he was lying”(v.6).
This was actually an invitation for the women to see for themselves the
truth of the resurrection. It is an invitation for them to personally
experience its reality. Unless they would be able to see and experience
themselves, they may not be able to have the passion and commitment to
proclaim it and to live by it.
Belief in the resurrection is not just an intellectual assent. To believe
in the resurrection is to live in the power of the Risen Christ. It is
to live the life that the Risen Christ had lived.
To live in the power of the resurrection is like the story of the Lost
Son, who took his inheritance from his father and went away to a far away
place and spent everything he had in an easy kind of life devoid of meaning
and purpose, until he had nothing to eat (Lk.15:32). He had to experience
living and eating with the pigs before he was able to realize life’s
meaning and purpose in his father’s house. He went back to his father
and asked for forgiveness. His father was so gracious enough to accept
him, and he said, “Let us celebrate, for my son was lost but now
is found; he is dead but now he is alive”(v.32).
To live in the power of the resurrection is like Zaccheaus, the tax collector.
He was despised by everyone, because he was a traitor to his own people
and a corrupt official of the Roman government (Lk.19:1-9). No one would
ever dare to talk with him as a friend, or to come to his house as guests.
But when Jesus said to him, “Zaccheaus, I will come to your house
today”, he really felt a sense of joy. Then, he said to Jesus, “Lord,
I will give one half of my money to the poor, and if I cheated anyone
I will pay back four times as much.” He was a changed person! Indeed,
he experienced the power of the resurrection.
Resurrection is not something that would happen only after we have died.
Rather, it is something that we could experience everyday as we bring
hope in the midst of hopelessness, forgiveness in the midst of sinfulness,
life in the midst of death.
Hence, the best proof of the resurrection is not the empty tomb, but the
lives of countless people through the ages that have been changed by the
power of the Risen Christ. If someone would ask us to prove the reality
of the resurrection, we must not only point to the empty tomb, but rather
we must be able to say like the words of a song, “For once I was
lost, but now I’m found; Was blind, but now I see”. This,
I believe, is the best proof that Jesus Christ our Lord is alive.
Go and tell
And finally, our Risen Lord is also saying to us through our Biblical
text, “Go and tell!” The angel of the Lord said to Mary Magdalene
and the other women, “Go quickly now, and tell his disciples, ‘He
has been raised from death, and now he is going to Galilee ahead of you;
there you will see him!’ ” (v.7). The women left the tomb
in a hurry, afraid and yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
Our experience with the Risen Lord is not something that we have to keep
to ourselves, but rather it is something that we have to share to others,
especially those who have not experienced it themselves. Telling the Good
News of the Risen Christ is an urgent task. The women had to go in a hurry;
they had to run with joy to tell the Good News (v.8).
The Good News of the Risen Christ has something to do with the news that
we receive each day. The news says, “There is so much poverty and
hopelessness in our land”. The Good News says, “What you have
done to the least of my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me”
(Mt.25:40)
The news says, “there is so much unrest among the young, some turning
to drugs and various forms of juvenile delinquency”. The Good News
says, “Come unto me you who are tired and are heavy laden and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am
gentle and lowly of heart. The yoke I will give you is easy and my burden
is light. And you will find rest for your souls”(Mt.11:28-29).
The news says, “There is so much falsehood, misinformation and disinformation
in our social life.” The Good News says, “I am the way the
truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me”(Jn.14:6).
The news says, “There is so much killing, rape, and various forms
of immoral and evil deeds around us”. The Good News says, “He
who has not sin will cast the first stone…Go and sin no more”
(Jn.8:7).
One of the problems of churches today is that they seem to have lost the
sense of urgency as well as the joy to go and tell the Good News of the
Risen Christ. In order for the church to recover the joy and the sense
of urgency to go and tell the Good News, it should also experience what
the women disciples had experienced. The church, in other words, must
recover its courage to be and its genuine faith in the Risen Christ.
Sometimes, Christians have a distorted view of the Risen Christ. Sometime
ago, there was a group of Christians in California who claimed to be scientists.
They launched a project to bring back Jesus to life by cloning him, using
his DNA taken from samples of his blood that might have been preserved
by the churches. They said that if their project would be successful,
a cloned baby Jesus would be born on December 25, 2001, which they believed
to be the 2000th birthday of Jesus.
When I was asked to comment on this project, my first reaction was to
wonder how it could be done. The project was quite presumptuous, to say
the least. How sure these scientists were, for instance, that the DNA
they got was really that of Jesus of Nazareth, and not of Judas or other
people? But even granting that they were able to get the right DNA of
Jesus, still the faith of the church about Jesus was not based on his
physical attributes but rather on the kind of life that he live - a life
offered in the service of the people.
But nevertheless, we could still clone Jesus, not by using the scientific
method of cloning, but rather by living the life that Jesus lived. Therefore,
anyone of us can be like Jesus by living like him, by following his commandments
and obeying his teachings. This, I believe, is the best way to clone Jesus.
It is quite significant to note that the angel instructed the women to
go to Galilee. Galilee was the center of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus
ministered to the people of Galilee. The angel’s instructions would
simply mean that it is in ministering to people that we really experience
the reality of the Risen Christ. It is in going to our own Galilee, to
our own place of ministry, that we experience the empowering presence
of the Risen Christ. He promised to be there with us.
This, therefore, is the threefold message of the Risen Christ for us:
“You must not be afraid!”, “Come and see!”, “Go
and tell!.” #
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