“EASTER 2024”
Saint Mark 16: 1-8
The Feast of The Resurrection of our Lord: 31 March Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Oh, to have been there in the dark cave—the tomb. Sometime after the deep midnight hour the sepulchre was no longer dark. And then you would have heard a noise. Your eyes would have detected a low almost imperceptible glimmer.
He Who had breathed out life and Holy Spirit into dirt—creating “Ah-dam/Adam;” He who had through His servant, Elijah, breathed out life into the dead son of the widow of Zarephath; He who had, through His servant Elisha, breathed out life into the dead son of the Shunammite woman, He Who on the cross some 35 hours earlier had breathed out His own life when He hung His sacred Head and “gave up the ghost/spirit” took a breath in! Jesus inhaled. His actual, true, real, physical, Body was now 98.6 degrees--with perfect “color!” The fierce, sharp, clear, piercing, and commanding eyes of the God/Man blinked open fully alert and Glorified! The hillside grave was flooded with blinding Divine light which would make the sun blush; which would make Genesis 1 “tip its hat.” The Man was alive! God was back from the dead. The Christ was risen and the myriads and myriads of Seraphs, Cherubs, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Principalities, Angels, and Archangels shouted Hallelujah so loudly, that their joyous victory cry; Gabriel’s trumpet of triumph of The Lord could have blown the giant stone from the entrance.
When God’s Law is preached, when it is used in sermons, the tendency is to use The Commandments to remind you of your failure to obey; of your actual transgressions against your creator that you willfully commit every day in what you do and say—in what you even think. Okay. It has now been mentioned. Stop it! Be truly sorry—by The Power of The Holy Spirit—and begin amending your mental and physical conduct.
But the Law goes to a deeper level. The Law takes your loved ones down 6 feet into the earth; or if cremated—into a dark mausoleum. The wages of sin for everyone is death. Death for you! That is terrifying to the old man. What is equally tragic is that your bodies begin betraying you with disease and sickness—not just physically but mentally and emotionally.
But if The Christ forgave sins and healed the blind, lame, leprous, deaf, deformed, and demon possessed while in his first—temporary (i.e., 33 year visible) ministry (servanthood), what will he do for you and yours now that He is eternally ALIVE and Victorious over sin, death, and the power of the devil? He knows your body is decaying. But He promises, and gives you, His Body; His Blood for strength and preservation “both in body and soul until life everlasting!” He knows your pain from depression and anxiety; your weariness from the attacks of worldly cares and obligation; of your loneliness in the face of having lost people, loved ones, and your own health. But He gives you not just the promise of a new and eternal life—with perfect health and vitality and joy—but He is the very proof Himself. Jesus lives, the victory’s won; death no longer can appall you!
Have you been “called, gathered, and enlightened” by The Holy Spirit? Look around. Where are you? You are in God’s Temple because you have been made God’s Temple. The Spirit—the breathing out, and now IN, of The Christ inflates your lungs with Grace and Faith.
Do you (and you do, all do) struggle with the loss and spiritual loneliness of living a slowly decaying and dying “earthly” life in a dying world? The Living Lord is your Lord. He has “purchased and won you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” But, His death is over. And your death and the deaths of your dear departed Saints—are but momentary. Your loved ones have merely been ushered into the Heavenly Nave a few seconds before you—who are pausing to look at something intently for a brief and scant second in the earthly Narthex. But Jesus lives. You are + Baptized. Jesus is resurrected and you wait your own, trusting in Him, and the rising from the dead of all the Saints. The Apostle gives you Jesus The Truth: “but now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits 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 firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” [1 Cor. 15. 20-23].
This is a truly and transcendently Joyous and Glorious Day, whether we feel it or not. Is mean Is. Jesus IS. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega.
The tomb is breached. The cave has had it brass gates ripped from their hinges as every casket will soon be. The dark is over and the night has fled. Today is Light, and Life, and Lilly-scent Peace.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” [Rev. 21.4]. Today is Easter. Tomorrow will be Easter. Every day is Easter for the Saints, here, and with Jesus!
Breathe in deeply. Breathe out triumphantly—HE LIVES!
In The + Name of The Resurrection--JESUS
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