“HE AWAKES AND IS STILL WITH YOU”
Saint Mark 16: 1-8
The Feast of The Resurrection of Our Lord: 27 March Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Sabbath is past. Holy Saturday took Lent into the grave with The Lord’s precious Body; a Body that was dead. Christ is your Sabbath, your rest, this grand morning because He was your rest, and the world’s rest—it’s eternal Sabbath when He was laid in the tomb. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
The rest in death was brief but very potent. The grave has been sanctified by The Body and Blood of the God/Man that your body continually strengthened by His same Body and Blood might become sanctified both in body and soul to life everlasting. Let us keep the feast!
He awakes and is still with you!
The Magdalene, the mother of James and Joses, Salome, Johanna, and Susanna, these blessed “Myrrh Bearers” bought sweet spices and went to the hillside that they might properly anoint The Lord’s dead body. Devoted, yes, but poignantly and tenderly lacking in faithful foresight. He is not here He is risen Gospelled the angel. He is not dead, He is alive. And you also dear brethren, you do not seek the Lord among the dead—in a Judean hillock cross the sea; but you are brought to His bountiful table here in His family abode. Let us keep the feast! He anoints the Mary’s and you with His sweet lily-scented Blood and His crystal clear myrrh-scented water.
This is the first of the week of life, forever!
Law is preached before Gospel because the prisoner about to be freed needs to know from what he is being liberated. The dead man, the “old Adam,” needs to know from what hellish pit and satanic jail he is being loosed from. So too, we know that all of us, like the dear Easter Women, at first will tremble and hold our tongues; “for they were afraid,” for we are afraid.
But we know the rest of His story. We live from the Holy + Font, Pulpit, Confessional, and Altar-Rail. We know the triple Hallelujah of His Resurrection. Jesus lives, the victory’s won, death no longer can appall us! The Magdalene and her sisters did speak. Mary told Peter and John, and the others all that she had seen and heard. She was the first evangelist of our Lord’ Easter Pascha—His Passover from death to Life! So dear Saint, tremble yes, but be always amazed at His mercy and forgiveness. Let us keep the feast. By so-doing you are filled, leavened, with Christ’s flesh—the Bread of life, and Christ’s Blood—the Water of life, and you are constrained to tell others of His goodness, His sincerity, His truth, His Washing and Meal, and His mansions for all who desire and need peace and rest.
Your weariness with fasting is over for this day you are fed the Revelation Lamb upon the throne. You are placed on thrones with the “12.” You, the prodigal, have been brought Home and arrayed in His finest raiment. The burial shroud which held all men has been ripped off of you His beloved by His own descent into death and His own bursting forth from the cave. The rock barring the door is obliterated, the damning indicting weight of the Two Stone Tablets has been lifted off of your two lungs, and you have been aspirated with Jesus by the breath of The Holy Ghost.
Today we proclaim that Satan and his brood are mocked, destroyed, and annihilated! “Oh death where is thy sting, O hell where is thy victory?”
Christ is risen and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen and the Saints triumphant rejoice! The Blessed Virgin, Saint Joseph, The Magdalene, Saint John the Baptist, Saint John the beloved, Saint Mark the Evangelist, Saint Esaias, Moses, David, and Abraham, The Blessed Apostle Saint Paul, Adam and Eve, and Able, and all of you rejoice!
Your sainted grand-parents, Mothers and Fathers, brothers, sisters, and children who passed before you; your dearest friends and fellow disciples who fell asleep in Jesus’s wounds before you; and all the family of faith—CHRIST IS RISEN and the tomb is emptied of its dead. For Jesus, having risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. That Jesus says to you “PEACE, I Forgive you all your sins, come to me for rest and life.” When you awake He is still with you because He awoke! He lays His pierced hand upon you; Hallelujah! This is the day which The Lord hath made! Let us keep the feast. Hallelujah!
To Him be glory and power forever and ever.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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