Easter Sunday
By Fr. Victor Feltes
St. Peter the Apostle proclaimed: “We are witnesses of all that [Jesus] did… They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible…to us, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” Jesus went to his Passion and Cross after the Last Supper, and from death and his tomb to the Resurrection. His apostles witnessed these events and were willing to die to testify to them, and nobody ever dies for what he knows to be a lie. The first Christians had full devotion because Christ did not go halfway in his saving mission.
But what if our Lord, instead of enduring pain and death, had chosen to spare and save himself? Jesus had told the apostles he “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” He said he had come “to give his life as a ransom for many,” shedding his blood “for the forgiveness of sins.” How could we ever find forgiveness of our sins in Christian faith and the sacraments, like Baptism and Confession, if Jesus never suffered and died?
Or imagine if Jesus had just gone halfway with the Last Supper, which was the first Holy Mass. What if he had taken the bread and given it to his disciples saying, “This is like my Body. Do this with a thought of me”? Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. … Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” What would become of us if we could not receive Jesus in the Eucharist?
Or what if instead of Easter, Jesus Christ had merely suffered and died and never rose again? St. Paul’s answer is emphatic: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,” Paul says “we are the most pitiable people of all!” Therefore, if Jesus had stopped at half-measures in his mission, we would not be saved!
At the beginning of Easter Sunday Mass we sang “Jesus Christ is risen today!” We celebrate him risen not like some celebrate the Easter Bunny hiding eggs or Santa Claus bringing gifts for Christmas. A savior of merely “once upon a time” cannot save us. We celebrate Jesus Christ who was truly risen on Easter morning in 33 AD, but who is also risen, living and active, in our world today. And in the face of sin of death, he is our only hope.
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!” Embrace today’s good news, the joy of the Gospel, firmly resolved to go forward in such a way that you may be saved. Realize that you cannot safely clear a six-foot chasm by only taking three-foot hops. Half-measures are not enough.
In his suffering, in his sacraments, in his dying and his rising, Jesus shows us how far he goes in love to reach and save us. So in your daily prayers and weekly worship, in virtue and noble service, in Christian faith and fellowship, by your gratitude and love, walk with our Lord Jesus Christ with your full measure of devotion.
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