Alleluia!

This Mass is our Alleluia; our song of praise to the risen Christ who is our life and whose triumph over death we proclaim to all the world.

Readings:

Acts of the Apostles  10: 34, 37-43

Psalm 117: 1-2, 16-17, 22-23

Colossians 3: 1-4

John 20: 1-9

Scripture Reflection

Today is the high point of the Christian year, the day we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. For Saint Paul, the Resurrection is what demonstrates the divinity of Jesus: nothing else seems to interest Paul about the life of Jesus other than his death and resurrection. We are Resurrection people.

The proof of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is provided and his resurrection thereby established for all Christians by two elements: the evidence of the empty tomb, which is recorded in today’s passage from John’s Gospel in the Mass on Easter Day; and also the evidence of the post Resurrection appearances of Jesus. The appearances are recorded in different ways and in different chronology or timetables in the four Gospels. They are listed and reported systematically in chapter fifteen of the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. Paul ends that report in very dramatic language, particular to himself,  and last of all he appeared to me the least of all the apostles.

Recently, another meaning of Resurrection was proposed by a French priest and theologian  X. Leon-Dufour in his book, The Resurrection of Jesus and the Easter Message. It is a reflection of one aspect of today’s Gospel account of the Resurrection: that the Resurrection of Jesus can be established by and understood in terms of the change in the behaviour of the followers of Jesus after the first Easter Day. By the afternoon of Good Friday almost all had deserted him. Within days of the first Easter Day they had come together again to form the first community of Christians – then called the followers of The Way. By Pentecost they had the courage and confidence to go out as preachers of the Gospel of Jesus, a Gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He argued that something must have changed them very radically from the frightened group who abandoned Jesus to his fate in Gethsemane into the fearless group of preachers who, after the Resurrection, stood up among the crowd and preached the Gospel in season and out of season.

In today’s Gospel, it is Peter, who late on Holy Thursday had denied Jesus three times, who rushes without hesitation into the tomb. In the first reading today, the Acts of the Apostles, it is the same Peter who proclaims and preaches to the family of Cornelius about all that had happened to Jesus. He proclaims Jesus to be the Son of God.  Peter has been transformed into a man without fear from the man who deserted and then denied any knowledge of Jesus. Something must explain this otherwise inexplicable change; so radical and so permanent. The Resurrection explains it. Peter runs straight into the tomb without stopping. The other disciple pauses for thought before entering. When he does, he and Peter both see and believe, having realised for the first time what rising from the dead meant. That realisation changes everything for them and for the history of humanity.

Paul’s declaration, “and last of all he appeared to me,” opens up a direct question for each one of us. ‘Has the risen Lord appeared to me in the sense that I have an understanding of resurrection which causes me to alter how I live my life as I look towards eternal life?’ I know the life stories of many persons in human history which don’t impact at all on how I live my life. Yet the life of Jesus does, or it should, because I call myself Christian and I come to Church to express my faith by sharing with others of the same faith in the celebration of mass.

We are Easter people and we can say that we are followers of Jesus  because we believe in the Resurrection.