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Admittedly, Lent is easier to experience and express than Easter due to its many practicalities. Lent is easier to understand and embrace with the many penitential practices we can undertake like fasting and abstinence, penance, and alms-giving that all came from and directed to our daily living. Remember our expression last season that “life is a daily Lent.”
Easter is different. It is not easily understood especially in our country when it is the hottest season when everything is dried and seems to be dying unlike in Europe and North America where it is springtime with a dazzling display of wonderful colors evoking life everywhere.
Our gospel this Sunday shows us how Easter had confronted the Lord’s disciples with an entirely new reality that was far beyond the limits of their experience, something which continues to our days, in our very lives. Christ’s Resurrection has opened new possibilities in our existence that affects everyone and leads us to a new kind of future so difficult in explaining and expressing but something very true inside us perfectly captured in our Filipino expression of “ah basta!”
See how simple are the accounts of the Lord’s appearances to his disciples without much details and descriptions:
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
John 20:19-23
Last Sunday we have mentioned the need for us to be open and empty at the same time to truly experience the joy and grandeur of Easter, exactly what our gospel tells us today. Nothing much is said about the reactions by the disciples of Jesus except that they “rejoiced” upon seeing him breaking through locked doors and windows.
But, if we try to dwell into the scene, we can feel a certain amount of energy bursting forth, an inexpressible intensity found in Jesus and in his disciples as well on that evening of the first day of the week.
John did not tell us how long Jesus stayed with the disciples nor how they rejoiced upon seeing him but we can imagine and feel the intensity both in Jesus and among the disciples on that evening and eventually the following Sunday when Jesus appeared anew in the same manner with Thomas already present.
See in both instances how John simply stated Jesus broke through locked doors and windows that caught the disciples in deep silence and adoration of the Risen Lord, of how their fears were allayed by the the gift of peace, of how sins were forgiven and doubts erased by Christ’s presence that eventually led to their seeing and believing in him.
And what happened? Jesus rose from the dead! He did not merely resuscitate from death but broke out into entirely new form of life, a life no longer subject to death and physical realities paving the way for us to enter into new dimensions in life too.
Like Thomas, Jesus touches us in the most personal and unique manner that deep inside us we also cry with intensity “my Lord and my God” to him especially during consecration at the Mass. In the second reading, we have heard how John who was then a prisoner at Patmos Island off the coast of Greece was also touched by Jesus with his right hand and told not to be afraid (Rev. 1:17) in proclaiming his gospel of salvation.
Though we can enumerate so many reasons and persons who have led us into believing in Jesus, we also admit at the same time that there is no specifically single reason nor person for our faith in God except our very selves, of our personal conviction that transcends all proofs and logic as well. Again, that expression we have of “ah basta!”
The grace of this second Sunday of Easter which is also the eighth day of the octave known recently as “Divine Mercy Sunday” is how God through Jesus Christ comes to us as someone so small and invisible. And so intense in his love for us, breaking all barriers just to be with us especially when we too feel so locked inside with fears like the disciples.
As we have reflected last week by becoming empty and open, we often find our mighty God in little things we usually dismiss or disregard like the mustard seed.
On that evening of Easter, Jesus came in all silence and simplicity, leaving us with not much material proofs except the testimony and works of his witnesses, the disciples.
Such is the mystery of the Resurrection by Jesus that is beyond descriptions and reason because it is of another dimension and world; but, we know it is true because we ourselves have experienced the Risen Lord in so many ways sometimes so plain and simple, even sometimes too funny to mention.
One undeniable fact of the veracity of the Resurrection of Jesus is the shift by the early Christians from the Sabbath day of worship into Sunday, the first day of the week. Remember the first Christians were all Jewish like Jesus; for them to abandon the Sabbath day worship and replaced it with Sunday means something so intense must have happened on that day itself and with them as well.
Because of Christ’s Resurrection, life is forever changed for the best amid all the many problems and chaos we have been through in the past 2000 years, giving us with so much hopes for a better tomorrow despite the many darkness coming our way. The key is to remain intense in our faith in Jesus Christ.
Dearest Jesus, grant me the intensity to proclaim you and your gospel of salvation in both words and deeds; use my hands to do many signs and wonders among your people like your Apostles but never to replace you; let my mission be an intense proclamation always that you alone is my Lord and my God. Amen.
