EASTER SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD
Acts 10:34, 37-43
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-9
Despite the conventional wisdom, seeing is NOT believing. The unreliability of eye-witnesses is well known in the court room. Research shows that 75% of false convictions are caused by an inaccurate eyewitness statement. In our time when there are deep fakes, AI produced images, conspiracy theories and photo editing right on your phone what we see does not always lead to the right conclusion. Seeing and believing are two different things. We recognize this in the story St. John tells of the first Easter Sunday. Simon Peter and what the gospel calls “the other disciple” both ran and saw the empty tomb. Peter saw the space and the burial clothes but did not know what to make of it. The other disciple, we are told, saw the same thing but had a different reaction. “He saw and believed.” The believing was not a result of the seeing but came from another place.
Where? Where did the belief come from? What led the other disciple to belief but not Simon Peter? The answer, perhaps, lies in the description of the other disciple. St. John says that the other disciple was “the one whom Jesus loved.” The other disciple came to belief because of love. In the book The Little Prince, Le Petit Prince, we read: “It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The other disciple saw with the heart, with the eyes of love and thus believed. It is customary to assume that this other disciple was St. John himself, that he was the beloved disciple and was just being modest in not pointing attention to himself. I suspect otherwise. I suspect that the reason the other disciple is not named is because St. John wants us to put our names in there. We are the beloved disciples. We are called to belief by having hearts that look with the eyes of love. The challenge this Easter morning is for each one of us to see the Risen Jesus as the heart and soul of our faith, yes. But also to believe that the Lord is still with us, that we as beloved disciples can see the signs of his ongoing, loving presence are all around us today. Easter morning is not the merely the occasion to rejoice in what happened way back in the day. Rather, it is our opportunity to look with eyes of love at the Risen Jesus present and active in our midst.
The problem, of course, comes because, like Simon Peter, we can all too easily focus on the empty tomb. We see the evidence of death, of destruction, of hopelessness, of despair. How readily we get stuck in the empty tomb. The call to faith this Easter morning is to look beyond the tomb and see the new thing God is doing. Greed and complacency can blind us to the fact that we are cooking our planet and threaten to make it an empty tomb. This Easter morning we are challenged to look with eyes of love and see people being raised up to care for Mother Earth, our common home as Pope Francis puts it. Looking at the Church we see closed buildings and empty pews that can make the Church look like a tomb. This Easter morning we look with eyes of love at those whose faith fills them with the fire of the Holy Spirit so that they want to share what a precious gift we have as the people of God. Looking at our city and our nation we see the divisions, the rancor, the violence which makes it feel like a tomb instead of something alive. This Easter morning we look with eyes of love and see how one person at a time, one neighborhood at a time people working to make our society become a more beloved community. Yes, the tomb, the smell of death is all around us. But on Easter we see and believe in the power of God to bring life out of death.
In the first reading assigned to this Easter Sunday from the Acts of the Apostles we find St. Peter making bold proclamation about the faith. The Peter before the Resurrection was full of doubt and fear, was capable of denial and abandonment. Peter after the Resurrection was full of life and confidence through the power of the Spirit. Easter Sunday is not, therefore, something that simply transformed Jesus from death to life. Easter also transformed Peter and Mary Magdalene and the other disciple and, yes, you and me. As St. Augustine put it, “we are Easter people and ‘alleluia’ is our song.” As Easter people we rejoice that the Risen Jesus is in our midst. As Easter people we believe in the power of God to make all things new. As Easter people we have seen that life can come out of death. What else can we do with such beliefs but to make Alleluia our song.
