Happy Easter! Our Lord is risen, indeed, He has truly risen! Easter is a time of newness of life. There’s a freshness in the air. A renewed energy and hopefulness. Pope Francis has declared this a Jubilee year of Hope. As Christians, nothing could bring us more hope than Jesus’s empty tomb. Take a moment and imagine if St. Mary Magdalen had found the tomb sealed with Jesus’s body remaining there. Everything would be different. We would not have access to heaven, because Jesus is the Way (John 14:16), the straight and sure path of life (Psalm 5:8; Psalm 16:11) shared eternally with God the Father. Our path to heaven depends on Jesus’s resurrection.
St. Paul taught: “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain…If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:14-19). Jesus Christ came to bring us His abundant life, both now and forever (See John 10:10). This means that the joy of hoping in Christ is for us to enjoy glimpses and tastes of now, but more importantly, forever and completely in heaven. And His resurrection makes this hope and joy possible. Without Easter, our hope would be dashed. We would be “most pitied,” as St. Paul said.
My prayer for you is that God will bless you with an overflowing experience of living hope in your heart by encountering Him this Easter. That you are, as St. Peter taught, reborn in this hope: “By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you…” (1 Peter 1:3-4).
Pope St. John Paul II said, “God revealed in the ‘fullness of time’ in Jesus Christ is truly ‘the God of hope’, who fills believers with joy and peace, so that ‘by the power of the Holy Spirit [they] may abound in hope’ (Romans 15:13). Thus Christians are called to be witnesses to this joyful experience in the world, and to ‘always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls [them] to account for the hope’ that is in them (1 Peter 3:15).” May we live this out during this Easter season, being so filled with hope and joy that our belief in Christ’s resurrection is apparent to all who we encounter. May we be “Easter people,” as the saint exhorted us to be, full of authentic hope and joy in Christ.