The Triumph of Easter

" After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from Heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men. Then the angel said to the women in reply, 'Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for He has been raised just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead.' " -[Matthew 28: 1-10.]


The shocking News of Easter is that in an earthly sense, Jesus was a failure.

Jesus was a lowly carpenter, from the backward village of Nazareth.  He was born of an illiterate and probably teenage mother. Mary conceived Him, but not of her husband Joseph. (But Joseph married her anyway.)

Jesus attracted increasingly large crowds. But the chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees were suspicious of Him from the beginning. They labelled Him blasphemous. They were threatened by the rumors that he was to be a political King. They needed this threat to their power destroyed.

But Jesus sloughed off that golden aspiration of secular kingship. In the end, He was strung up, mocked, spat upon,  stripped of His clothes and crucified as a common criminal.

Father James Martin has written: "The Easter story is both appalling and astonishing: the crane betrayal of Jesus by one of His closest followers [Judas], the triple detail of His best friend, the gruesome crucifixion and the brutal end to His earthly life. Then, of course, there is the stunning turnaround three days later." --[WSJ 3/26/16].

I have been called a Failure, many times, all for being a Christian. This designation of "Failure" came chiefly from my parents.

I was a Failure -- and a woefully sensitive child-- for insisting that my sibling's verbal and physical abuse STOP.

I was a Failure for suggesting that we give some of our extraneous money to charity. ("We don't GIVE our money away.")

I was a Failure for thinking of others first. ("You must think of YOURSELF first!")

I was certainly a Failure for marrying a Catholic man. My parents would not even stand in the receiving line at our wedding. When I announced my engagement, my mother said, "Where did we go wrong?"

Along the way, I realized that my parents' advice would violate my principles. They were trying to control me, to force me to adhere to their material standards. By bribery, blackmail, and rejection, they tried to wield power over me. Once I had reached my early teens, I realized that I had to make their money and power irrelevant to my life.

Essentially, Jesus did the same. The Romans had no sway over Him. When they asked if He was the "King of the Jews", He replied, "YOU say that I am."

My family wanted me to believe that there was no God. That only "Failures" in life need this nebulous Divine Being, "out there somewhere", to cling to. That "religion is the opiate of the masses", an anesthetic for those who are such Losers, they cannot accomplish anything on their own merit.

But, as John Navone, S.J. writes in his book, "Triumph Through Failure",  "The self-confidence of the world represents a radical turning away from God. The man who believes that he is self-sufficient, independently of God's Love, walks in darkness ( 1 John 1: 8; 2:2). "

Easter is a celebration of the radical, not only of God's radical Love for us. but also of a Failure turned Triumph.

By attempting to violently destroy this "dangerous prophet" in Jesus, the Romans actually succeeded in spreading Christianity, like wildfire, over vast territories.  When Jesus intoned, "Do this in remembrance of me", at the Last Supper, His single instance of poignant ritual became an entire Church.

In Russia today, some religious denominations are being called "enemies of the State" because they are not beholden to, nor swayed by, anything the State can say, or do to them. Similarly, in Apartheid South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, 'Their first mistake was to teach us to read and give us a Bible.'

As Father James Martin wrote, "The message of Easter is, all at once, easy to understand, radical, subversive and life-changing. Easter means that nothing is impossible with God. Moreover, that life triumphs over death. Love triumphs over hatred. Hope triumphs over despair. And that suffering is not the last word."

NOW that you understand this Message, what will you do with it? Because, above all, Easter demands that we change. That we love, that we take action, that we believe in and become more than we ever thought possible.

[Related Postings: ""Roll Away the Stone", 4/17/14; "Dawn's Light", 3/26/16; "Where is your Joy?' 3/30/13; " Easter Redemption", 4/7/12; "Easter Joy!", 4/23/11].

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