Happy Easter, Dear Friends,
Even though it has been a long hard winter and a crucifying
Lent for immigrants worldwide and others drawn into a world of war and denial
of life, hope stirs in us that the promises of God have truly been kept in the
risen Christ.
Thinking about the early morning events of that First Day of
the Week, we probably wouldn’t have done it that way.
It was all too silent, too quick, too unlike the Jesus whom
these faithful women had known and loved. Their Jesus would have welcomed them,
up, as they were long before dawn, hurrying to the tomb to be there at first
light to perform the burial rites for Jesus. That’s what women of Jesus’ time did.
The cave where Jesus lay behind the stone
seemed to be an insurmountable block to their mission.
No worry. The stone had already been rolled away.
Jesus was not there.
A confusing start to the resurrection.
We probably wouldn’t have done it that way.
God had shattered the human expectation of death.
Through his love for them during their years together, and
in choosing them to be at the tomb that remarkable moment, Jesus gave them hope
–
and words – true, real and succinct –
to bear to his brothers that
violence against him during his passion
did not quench life.
Jesus was Alive!
Amazingly and undeniably,
Jesus had linked his own resurrection
to the witness of women.
You tell the brothers I am alive.
We probably wouldn’t have done it that way.
We would have thought that the men would have heard the message first.
But women are
midwives of life. Why wouldn’t Jesus choose them?
Christ’s resurrection shattered the impossible. He was
alive.
No more bondage to the way things were.
Easter does not disappoint.
Rather, it gives courage to all who seek to embody in their own lives all that
the Risen Jesus is and stands for.
Easter is not naïve.
Only the imagination of God
can make the unthinkable happen.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
