“You Know What Has
Happened” – Easter 2014
One of the casualties of the present age is the inability to
arrive at agreement on just about anything.
Certainly on matters of taste and opinion we should not expect agreement
among persons; civilized people respect differences in these areas and allow
people to be as they are. In the realm
of truth and goodness, the failure to agree has profoundly deleterious
consequences for individual persons and entire societies. However, now the lack of agreement extends to
the realm of facts – facts of history, facts of present day events. I remember attending a Civil War re-enactment
at a small battlefield in Kansas where a group of people showed up cheering for
the Confederates to win! Did they really
think that such advocacy could alter the outcome of history? Did they reject the outcome of that
historical event to such an extent that they held out hope for a different
result in the present age?
In any case, when Peter announces to the crowd the saving
words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in the Resurrection, he makes this bold
proclamation: “You know what has
happened all over Judea…” The events of
Jesus’ life, death, and even resurrection are known to the entire world. They are not hidden, secret events. They are not even matters of dispute as to
whether they happened or not. What
matters is whether these events have any meaning for us in our lives, or
rather, whether we live in such a way that indicate that these events do indeed
have salvific meaning for us.
The great Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner made famous the
phrase “the anonymous Christian.” By
this statement he meant that there exist people whose lives reflect Gospel
values and the manner of Jesus’ living, even though they have no material
knowledge at all of Jesus the Lord. They
live their lives in a way that a Christian ought to live – lives of hope, joy,
and love – lives that openly reflect the fact that Jesus existed on this earth;
that he died and rose again to save all humankind. We marvel at such lives, as they stand as an
indictment to us who do know about the message and Jesus and live less than
exemplary Christian lives.
Rahner had a companion idea known less famously as “the
anonymous atheist.” He used this term to
refer to Christians who profess the creed with their lips, but there outward
lives in no way reflect Gospel values.
Their lives do not represent Christian joy, hope, and love that reflect
the truth that Jesus existed on this earth - that he died and rose again to
save all humankind. In effect, they live
as an atheist. The life of Jesus has no
real practical meaning for their lives.
The fact of the empty tomb and the words of Peter today
compel us to tear aside the anonymity of our lives and to definitively state
whether Jesus the Lord has real and authentic meaning for us in our lives. Will we decide to respond affirmatively to
the event of Jesus’ resurrection and live our lives anew as His followers? Or will we continue to see the empty tomb and
all Jesus said and did as mere curiosities that do not affect the way we live
in any appreciable way?
The resurrection of Jesus led to some rapid and dramatic
results in the life of Jesus’ followers.
Despite their fear and doubts the risen Jesus continued to be with them
and visit them. He fulfilled His promise
and sent them the Spirit to dispel their fear and to be transformed into people
of courageous love. Men and women who
were formerly timid, doubting seekers of a political Messiah of this world only
became people enflamed with love for God and for others. Death, which had been their greatest fear,
had been vanquished by the Lord Jesus and no longer had the power of fear over
them.
Our lives too can be transformed similarly, if only we would
give these events the meaning intended for us in the divine plan. As we seek to daily find this meaning in our
lives, we come together on the greatest of all Christian feasts to pray and be
renewed in our search for the meaning of the empty tomb. And so we pray together: “Let us pray on this Easter morning for the
life that never again shall see darkness.
God our Father, creator of all, today is the day of Easter joy. This is the morning on which the Lord appeared
to men who had begun to lose hope and opened their eyes to what the scriptures
foretold: that first he must die, and
then he would rise and ascend into his Father’s glorious presence. May the risen Lord breathe on our minds and
open our eyes that we may know him in the breaking of bread, and follow him in
his risen life. Grant this through
Christ our Lord. Amen.”
No comments:
Post a Comment