The victorious alleluia of Easter is the triumph of the cross. It’s the realization that life doesn’t have to be free of troubles in order to be full of joy. It’s the day-to-day living out of a faith that comes from trusting that God is carrying us through the trials and bringing good out of bad. It is our undaunted hope that after the stormy winds is the promise of a new day filled with sunshine and gladness.
Our cross is a soft word that we speak when someone else is angry and we feel like shouting. Our cross is a hand outstretched to comfort the afflicted when it’s inconvenient and we feel like withdrawing. Our cross is a good deed that we do to those who treat us unjustly and we feel like retaliating. It is our humility in the face of a misguided bully who is so filled up with envy and incompetence and simply try to cover all these with his futile efforts to appear righteous.
On the other hand, our resurrection is the joy that comes from knowing that we have made a difference in the lives of others for the sake of God’s kingdom. Our resurrection is our resolve to continue to do His will even if, doing so, we would be going directly against the destructive tide of self-centeredness and materialism. This is what Easter is all about. This is the liberating grace within us because, at last we have learned to accept, and we have started to walk on the road of renewal which will eventually brings us to our own triumph over our very self and let God do His thing for us to follow.
It is the good news that the risen Jesus is in our midst right now. It is the good news that Jesus has triumphed over evil and death, and so will we, if we but open our hearts to him. It is the good news that Jesus is ready to work miracles for us, if we but let him. It is the good news that nothing can destroy us anymore – not pain, not sorrow, not rejection, not sin and not even death itself.
Jesus has won, and He just defeated the pain and sting of death. A Christ-less cross and an empty grave are proof of His triumph over sin and death. Now he is proclaiming to the whole world His divinity and the divine origin of our Christian faith. His rising from the dead is the most concrete proof that we are not hoping against hope, and it is a proof that our hope to be one with Him in His resurrection is not a futile hope. He is alive, and we shall also live with Him.
With all these joy and gladness, though, I just couldn’t keep my mind from thinking about the real meaning of His resurrection for most of us people of this generation. There is not the slightest doubt about the resurrection of Christ Jesus, and we all believe in that. However, He is alive, but the question is: “Is he alive in our hearts? Is he alive in our very person? Is he alive in our homes? Is he alive in our midst?”
We may have known and have accepted all the facts about His resurrection and His triumph over death and sin, but all these faith and acceptance are irrelevant if our actions do not show the real goodness of the life of God in us. We have faith in Him as the Risen Christ and He truly rose from the dead and He is alive, but sad to say that the divine life which He always wanted to give us is not yet alive in us. We are still in a struggle to reap the fruits of Easter because up until now we are still slaves of our own self-centeredness, and this slavery blinds us to see the joy that Easter brings.
Jesus accepted death of a cross, but His Divine Nature cannot remain dead forever. His body was buried in a tomb, but the Light of the World cannot remain in that darkness forever. He carried the weight of our sins on His shoulders and so He died, but He must rise from the dead to prove His Divinity and bring us our salvation. And when He finally opened the tomb to announce His triumph over sin and death, our salvation became a reality. Yes, a reality! But there are conditions that we still need to fulfill.
We were given our freedom since the beginning of our existence and God never thought of taking it away from us even if we abused that freedom to its limits. Our undivided cooperation to the grace of God is needed for our salvation. We cannot have the best of both worlds and so we really need to choose.
Let us then make this year’s Easter celebration different from all the others because now we have finally decided to choose Christ and now, we have allowed Him to be alive in our lives.