Homily for Easter Sunday April 1, 2018
Fr. Albert St. Peter’s, New Iberia
Christianity is easy to disprove. Or at least, it should be. Our faith, the whole religion, the entire worldwide, two millennia old Catholic Church rests upon a single historical fact: that Jesus actually rose from the dead. If you can show that Jesus did not rise from the dead, then we are a bunch of fools… two billion people radically altering their lives all for the sake of some supposedly miraculous Jew from two thousand years ago… that would be the greatest April Fools prank of all time.
Except that the joke’s on them because it is true… all of it. And proving that it is true is really the point of today’s readings. We’ve heard these stories so many times that we tend not to really hear them at all. They aren’t just pious legends, they are evidence. First of all, we have Peter giving a testimony. He uses the legal word “witness” three times in this short speech. He’s not just telling a great story, he sees himself on trial over one very important charge: did Jesus Christ rise from the dead or not? Peter responds: “He did and I know it because I saw him. And not just me, we have witnesses!” All the apostles and, at one point, 500 people at the same time saw the risen Jesus.
That testimony has been handed on all the way to this day. In some sense, the very fact that you came here today is a testimony. Scripture too adds to this testimony – which is of course what we’ve just heard. Some will be quick to dismiss it, but the historical fact is that we have more copies of the bible than of any other ancient book in existence… thousands more copies than the next most common ancient book.
But perhaps its easy for you or someone you know to dismiss all of that as myths propagated by piety and deception… it’s all too long ago to verify. But it’s not, because the Apostles are not done bearing witness. We can visit their tombs and learn of how they were killed. Many of their martyrdoms are known not just from the bible, but other historical documents too. These men, if they were lying, all went through torture and death holding on to that lie. During the infamous Watergate scandal 12 men with everything to gain couldn’t hold onto a lie. What does that say about 12 men who lost everything because they said Jesus rose?
Still, perhaps you want more scientific evidence. Fine, then I give you the Gospel. Mary Magdalene tells Peter that Jesus is missing, so he goes to investigate and John comes with him. Do you know what they found? Physical and scientific evidence that Jesus had done something no human being should ever be able to do. They “saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.” The Gospel doesn’t say who or when, but someone must have picked these up because we still have them. The head cloth is in Spain and the burial shroud is in Turin, Italy. That shroud has a remarkable image on it of Jesus himself.
And all of the scientific evidence is in our favor; It points to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. To this day, no method known to man is able to reproduce the image on the Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of Jesus. Some people say carbon dating proves it is from the middle ages, but those tests have been thoroughly disproven. And there’s still more evidence that can’t be explained any other way
In theory, it should be easy to disprove Christianity. Just show us evidence that no man named Jesus ever rose from the dead. Yet, when you set out to do that, you have to face quite a lot of evidence: personal testimony, written records, scientific evidence, and more than I tell you now all support what we believe, that Jesus rose from the dead. We are not being played for fools on this Easter Morning.
But if it’s true, what does that mean? Well, this single historical fact – the resurrection of Jesus from the dead – is the most important event in history. If it really is true that God became man to die and show us that we can go beyond death… then it should change everything. If even these earthly things like books and burial cloths point to the reality of heaven – the reality that Jesus is alive – then we really should get serious about heaven.
And this is where an historical fact – something we can prove with research and reason – points us to something “above:” Faith. Not only did Jesus rise from the dead, but he gave us a Church to tell us about that resurrection and to tell us why it matters. And the reason it matters is simple: the resurrection proves that there is a whole lot more to life than comfort, money, power, and pleasure. It proves that life goes past death and into eternity. And what is 80 or 100 years if you have eternity to think about?
As St. Paul tells the Colossians, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above… not what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” You see, if you trust the man who rose from the dead, then there is this stuff called grace. And it is this grace that connects us to Jesus and makes it possible for us to live forever in happiness. So, if Jesus really rose from the dead, and, if Jesus is telling the truth, then the only reasonable thing to do is get as much of this grace as possible – what St. Paul describes as “what is above.”
The good news is that so many things on earth can help us seek what is above. Just as witnesses and scripture and the shroud all point us to heaven, so we have the sacraments, the Church community and more to point us to heaven. Today is a solemn feast, meaning we can and should party… but we should do it in a way that celebrates what really matters, that encourages us to be grateful for spiritual things. So yes, we can enjoy life, but remember why you are here today and every day.
That, then, is my challenge to you on this Easter Morning/Evening, this day that just so happens to fall on April Fools. How much does this historical fact of the resurrection matter to you? If Jesus really rose from the dead to prove He is God, then shouldn’t we trust him? And shouldn’t we trust the Church he established to tell us about it? So, do you seek what is above? In a few moments we are going to renew our baptismal promises – this is a solemn oath to live like the resurrection matters. Because if the resurrection is real, but you act like it isn’t, then who is the April Fool?
