“JESUS LIVES”
Saint Mark 16. 1-8
The Feast of the Resurrection of The Lord: 4 April Anno Domini 2010
Fr JW Watson S.S.P.
"HE IS RISEN"
Jesus Lives! The victory's won! Death no longer can appal me.
Dear brothers and sisters of the Risen One; dear sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church; dear pure and virginal Brides of the true Returning King: Happy and Blessed Pascha, Happy and Blessed Easter, Happy and Blessed New Morning - - the Eternal 8th Day is upon you all. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
Yes, the Sabbath is past. Not just Holy Saturday, yesterday, the 7th day is past, done and over. But so too the real and true rest, repose, and entombment of the pierced, marred, punctured, and bloody God/Man is over! Jesus Lives! The victory's won! Death no longer can appal me.
Your sinful nature still exists on Easter morning to be sure, but by God's grace, through Faith in Christ's works and atonement for your sins, your sinful selves no longer have the iron-vise-like grip on your eternal destiny. Jesus' merits, Jesus' victory, Jesus' glorified Body, and Jesus' Life eternal are now ALL YOURS by Grace through Faith.
Oh thank you Lord and Savior; thank you Holy Ghost, + thank you Loving Father.
So too, the blessed Saint Mark, in his inspired Evangel mentions three holy women (Mary the mother of James, Salome, and the Magdalene) who brought spices to that tomb, on that blessed morn. But the sweet fragrance of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, used to cover the stench of rot, decay and death were not needed, for the Christ was no longer dead! That morning, this morning, and every morning, His pure, divine, infinite, sweet, green, fresh, clean, crisp, vibrant, and joyful scent permeates all of His brothers and sisters. You his family have the eternal Lillie aroma of forgiveness of sins, life everlasting, and salvation from all your enemies!
And when you instead look to yourself; when you bewail (like the 12 did when the boat they were in was MOMENTARILY taking on water and APPEARED to the senses to be sinking); when you bewail your current condition(s) of poverty, family dislocation, physical illness, mental disease, heart-ache over loss, unfulfillment in worldly affairs, depression, addiction, and all of the other effects of sinful selves, daily committing sins, take heart! Or in reality, RECEIVE HIS HEART, HIS REINS, HIS WORK, HIS COMPASSION, HIS BODY and HIS BLOOD.
The Resurrection is not about instant fixes, nor is it about managing your lives and improving your physical, mental or emotional comfort levels. The Resurrection is about Jesus being true and good and faithful. He worked all of your chores, jobs, and obligations for 33 years of perfect obedient life. He suffered and died for your treasonous, treacherous and foul acts of murder (murder of God and murder of your neighbors), and THEN He rose from the dirt, rose unlike Adam, rose by His own power, authority, will and dominion, to forever Live, and to give you His forever LIFE and Triumph. You have all of it now as a pledge in His inerrant word, in His daily applications of + still waters/Holy Absolution, and in His own Last Will & Testament. And yes, it is in His Holy Meal of Mercy where He already gives you, feeds you and nourishes you with His Divine, Holy, Glorified, Body and Blood.
No, this won't pay your mortgage, take away your emphysema, or bring back your wife from death… but it will, IT DOES, give you that PEACE which surpasseth all understanding. Christ's WORD, Christ's Body and Blood, Christ's merits and righteousness give you all that you need; all that God knows that you need. Now, right now, 4 April Anno Domini Two Thousand and Ten, you have total REMISSION of all crimes committed or ever to be committed. Right now you have guaranteed triumph over the world's foul clutching claws, and your own old Adam's back-sliding and back-stabbing rebellion. And right now, you have, not just a "get-out-of-jail" card, but a get out of death and hell passport - - stamped in the bright red blood of the God/Man.
Yes, you still will live your earthly, physical (and emotional) lives "under the Cross;" yes, there will still be many more aches, pains, amputations, tears, and heart-aches… but they are as temporary as was that "sinking" boat on the Sea of Galilee; they are as temporary as the few brief "hours" that the Lord of Life was dead in the sepulchre.
Your spiritual lives are filled with Light and Life and the anticipation of heavenly splendor. The stone has been lifted not just off the door of the cave grave, but also off of your neck and back.
Sometimes the Sacrament of the Altar is called a "foretaste of the Feast to come," and so it is. This Sunday and every Lord's Day, your faith also grasps the Truth-- that in Messiah's Resurrection from the dead, in His Glorified Body, so too is this a picture, and an inchoate "rain check" (a vicarious vein-check) of your own assured resurrections from the grave, and your own soon-to-be-revealed perfect bodies and minds!!!
An angel is here in your midst this perfumed morn, too clad in white, announcing the catholic evangel of the Conquering Warrior, the Victorious Joshua, "do not be alarmed, do not be despondent, do not be anxious for anything; He is not dead, he is not buried. He is now gone to the New Testament Galilee of "you gentiles"…not in baked fish on the shore of Tiberias, but in Water, and Writ, and Eucharist, for you, on the shore of the Sea of Eternity.
Yes you still can be afraid. Yes you still tremble. But you are also amazed; you are amazed and exhilarated at His love and tenderness which has been delivered just for you.
"HE IS RISEN!"
Jesus Lives! The victory's won! Death no longer can appal me!
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost