“HERE IS THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD: HALLELUJAH!”
Saint Mark 16: 1-18
The Feast of The Resurrection of our Lord: 16 April Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
As you sang this past Lententide: “Abel’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies; but the Blood of Jesus for our pardon cries.” Tertullian said that the “blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” He was kind of right as to the result of persecution. But we know and confess that it is only Jesus’ Blood which is atoning, propitiating, and saving.
But, if our Lord’s suffering and death at Golgotha, the “finishing” of all your sins, all your guilt, all your just punishment, means only a forensic declaration of not-guilty, a pardon from hell’s damnation…then what happens when you die?
If Jesus’s death on the cross pays for Abel’s sins and “saves” him from the devil and perdition…what about Abel’s rotted to dust corpse—his blood which soaked the ground in cries and tears?
The truths of “justification by Grace through Faith, in Christ alone” are true because Jesus is The Truth. And what is Jesus right now at this moment? Where is Jesus as I preach? The Lord is alive with a still incarnate flesh & blood actual Body. “He is risen!” Hallelujah indeed! Easter is more than mere “Easter,” it is The Feast of The Resurrection of our Lord! To be a Christian by Grace through Faith is to be WHERE The Christ is. He is the vine and you are the branches. Branches have mass, weight, and a local presence in time—length, width, depth. Flesh! The resurrection of the BODY as your Baptismal + Creed is confessed by you daily; the Church’s Nicene Creed: “I look for the resurrection of the dead,” as you, in unison—together—confessed minutes ago. That is a triumphant reaffirmation of Easter morning reality, and a mighty and bold “amen” and “here I stand” of this very Mass Day. “He is risen.” That is what it is all about. Good Friday is being Saved. Easter is having that Salvation in the Flesh…forever. The day is surely drawing near, the Final Advent, where our Easter King will return with His Army of Sabaoth to raise the dead, ALL the dead, from their graves. Your deceased mothers and fathers, your deceased brothers and sisters, grandparents, great grandparents, beloved spouses, friends, children, mentors, Saints Mary Magdalen, Mary mother of James, Salome, Mark, Paul, Esaias, and all the rest; Abel. And if Abel, then also Adam and Eve. Think of the unspeakable joy that Mother Eve will have in seeing (with real eyeballs) and embracing (with real fleshly hands and arms) her beloved son—murdered no more. “He is risen!”
Everything that the blessed Apostle preached to the Christians at Corinth—and to you—He received from The Lord, yes! But Paul himself, also was received, bolstered, confirmed, and “sent” by the The Apostles and the Jerusalem Bishop as well. The deposit of the Confessed Faith—Christ Crucified and Risen—was Gospelled first in Jerusalem and Judea before going out in full Catholicity to the ends of the world.
Roman and Sanhedrin guards gone, good. Stone rolled away, fortuitous. Empty tomb, puzzling and yet thrilling…anticipatory. White garmented angel, frightening, supra-natural—sacramental. Yes, they would all soon see and behold The living Nazarene Rabbi, their Lord and God, in the flesh, with their eyes. They too would see Him as real and alive as the “12” did on Easter Eve. As you will at the Last Trump when He comes on the clouds. As you will when you eat and sup with Him in Paradise…with the real resurrected fleshly bodies of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But first, the three women were themselves Gospelled with The Word! The “good messenger,” that pastor in white, spoke good news: “Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which WAS crucified; He is risen; He is not here [in the grave] … go your way, tell His Disciples…there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you.”
Yes, the women fled from the sepulchre…they trembled…were amazed…and said nothing for they were afraid. But the fear was temporary. We know from the Emmaus account that the “12” were told the good news by the women. The Magdalene shared it most explicitly. We know that the reason Peter and John ran to the empty hillside mausoleum was because of the testimony of those women evangelists…because of the Word. That Word, along with the risen Body of Jesus…the words from Jesus and from His Apostles caused St. Paul to pen: “He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen, of Cephas, then of the Twelve; after that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once.” Fret not that you do not see him visually this morning, for you have the same angelic word, and His same bodily presence. Repent of your fear and doubts. Believe The Word. Eat the Word.
The Apostle goes on to evangelize you: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” Hallelujah!
Every grave burst open with the same joyous Hallelujah shout of our Lord’s own cave of death. Lazarus raised again, only this time incorruptible, along with the Widow of Nain’s son, Jairus’ daughter, the Shunamite’s son, the widow of Zarephath’s boy, and of course Mary and Martha, and all the parents…and all of you and yours…glorified…never to die, but only to be in the presence of The I AM, The Living One, the Alpha and Omega.
This is the morning of the first day of the week. You have been gathered by the Paraclete and The Word, not for the rising of the sun, but for The RISEN SON OF GOD to take away your fear and to give you again the pledge that you and all the Saints will reign fully for eternity—eternity in the flesh—even as you now delight in that foretaste of the feast to come.
Easter Gospel?
“I look for the resurrection of the dead; and the life of the world to come.” “He is risen!”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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