Easter Message

Everything has context: geographical, historical, political, social, religious.  The context in which we live our lives both illuminates and influences our condition. It can also challenge our existence, or alternatively give purpose and meaning to it.

Think of the credit crunch and its effects on the lives of many people, affecting their employment and housing and general wellbeing. 

Think of the earthquake in central Italy and the destruction and heartbreak that came in its wake. 

Think of the political tensions in the Middle East and the consequent spasmodic outbreaks of war.

Think of the cultural conflicts feeding terrorism, keeping our security forces on the watch. 

Religious context is also a key factor – indeed for many people, as for us, it gives meaning, motivation and direction for the conduct of our lives. People are increasingly interested in tracing their ancestry – made so much easier today through the internet. It increases knowledge of their context as human beings and as members of the human family.

With a sure instinct the Church, at the most solemn of her liturgies, the Easter Vigil, traces the origins of mankind, the history of God’s self-revelation and the story of the Church as a chosen people. It explores our fall and rise, the influence of evil and the achievement of grace, which we term redemption and salvation.

Starting with the book of Genesis and taking it right through to the Epistles of the Apostles of Jesus, the vigil service provides a context for our belief and practice, whatever our circumstances – and this both for the understanding of the hundreds brought into the Church during this holy night and for the refreshment of our own memories.

I am going to trace just one of those essential strands in the tapestry of our history: the fall and redemption of man. For without a proper understanding of the connection between sin and death, the death and resurrection of Christ lack their full significance.

Let me give you a preparatory word about the book of Genesis, where our story begins.  It is neither a scientific book nor a history book. It does not tell us the “how” of creation but the “why” – why and by whom it came to be.

The Darwinian “selection of species” and the whole evolutionary debate are in that sense irrelevant.  The Catholic Church finds no difficulty in seeing the evolution of species as the way in which creation as we know it came about. Genesis tells us profound truths in a storybook fashion. We have to determine the genre of each of the books which make up the Bible, the Word of God, in order to understand the nature of the information and instruction which is being offered to us.

The story begins within the garden, at the heart of which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which primitive man is forbidden to touch.  It was the scene of his disobedience (Gen. 2.17). Fast-forward to a tree on the outskirts of man’s city. It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The evil is the inhumanity of man to man: the harm done to the Son of Man (his crucifixion). The good is the salvation – the reconciliation – the atonement made through the wood of the cross on which he died he who is obedient to his Father’s will, even unto the death of the cross. We reflected deeply on that on Good Friday.

From his pierced side issued a fountain of life just as there issued water from the rock at Meribah as the children of Abraham journeyed through the desert on the way to the Promised Land (Cf Jn 19.34).

Saint John the Evangelist saw in that issue of water and blood the sacraments which form the Church, born from the side of Christ as he was born from the side of the sleeping Adam.

“I will set enmity between you and the woman”, said God to Satan, “and he (the woman’s child) will crush your head while you lie in wait for his heel” (Gen. 3.15).  The Book of Genesis, commencing with man’s fall, also prophesies his salvation and carries the promise of victory over sin and death. “Therefore”, Saint Paul tells the Romans, “as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom. 5.12) “If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” (Ibid 17).

And again Saint Paul: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Ibid 6. 3-4).  Saint Paul concludes with this instruction, this admonition: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey your passions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourself to God as men (and women) who have been brought from death to life”. (Ibid 13)

Victory may be assured, but the battle is not over – neither at the personal nor at the corporate global level: Once again let us heed Saint Paul: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind in making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am – who will deliver me from this body of death? - Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

And at the global, the universal level? Let us recall Jesus’ words to Peter: “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of death shall not prevail against it and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 16. 18-19).

I was arrested by a responsory in the Divine Office of Holy Saturday morning that sums up attractively our theme: “Our Shepherd, the source of living water, has departed. At His passing the sun was darkened, for he who held the first man captive is now taken captive himself.  Today our Saviour has shattered the bars and burst the gates of death. He has torn down the barricades of hell and overthrown the power of Satan.”

May “our shepherd, the source of living water” cleanse and renew us in His image through the Easter sacraments, and refresh us all with His Easter joy!

I wish you all a happy Easter.