Sermon Central
-
Resurrection: A Love Expression
Contributed by Dr. John Singarayar Svd on Jun 11, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: Easter
Resurrection: A Love Expression
Scripture:
Reflection
My dear sisters and brothers,
Everyone has been created by God to be the master of creation.
Although he/she meets with difficulties in achieving this objective, he/she has never given it up.
He/she has never been content to remain in suppression.
It is necessary that everyone must enter into the plan of God fully.
It is achieved by making daily effects in his/her life.
We believe that the death and resurrection Jesus made Christ to become the head of the liberated human race.
Everyone has to realize his/her inner urge for freedom and victory.
First and foremost, it has to be realized in his/her own life.
He/she must become his/her own master before he/she becomes the master of the universe.
Our union with the risen Christ assures us that we are able to accomplish this vision in our lives.
As Christians we cannot look at human evolution arriving gradually into a state of perfect freedom from a mere human point of view.
One of the forces is at work in this movement towards progress, is the power of the risen Lord.
Every celebration of Easter brings the world and human nearer and nearer to the day of total liberation, freedom and victory.
We co-operate with Christ in this work by following the path that He chose in order to realize this victory in a most perfect manner in His own person.
Resurrection is the symbolic word that expresses the survival of the person after death.
The entire person is destined to live eternally.
Survival of the person after death does not include the human corpse that is shed at death.
The corpse has nothing to do with the dogma of resurrection.
It is beyond the dogma, the love of God.
The four Gospel narratives concerning the resurrection of Jesus are very different from one another.
This does not mean that there is no harmony among them.
Each one of these texts has its own characteristics.
Yet, they contain no contradiction.
Matthew mentions the guarding of the sepulcher and an earthquake which the other Evangelists omit.
Mark is rather brief and mentions very few details of his own.
Luke gives more importance to the beautiful episode of the pilgrims from Emmaus.
John with great sensitivity describes the arrival of Peter at the empty tomb; he also relates the touching encounter of Mary Magdalene with Jesus whom she mistook for the gardener.
On the other hand, the four Gospels have a few points in common.
They all mention the sign of the empty tomb and the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.
Women were the first ones to discover that the body of Jesus had disappeared.
In the resurrection of Christ, God reveals to us the holiness of His love.
It is distinguished from all other love.
That holiness is not a definition and limitation of His love.
It rather means that even in His love, even in His giving Himself to us He remains the Lord.
That love is shown at its deepest level in His ability and willingness to suffer, not only with us, but for us.
The cross of Christ is what happens when human persons are confronted with God.
The resurrection of Christ relates the earthly life of Jesus to its origin in God.
That earthly life is what we know about Jesus Christ, and it is there that we can find what God is like.
In Christ, God reveals His love towards us.
The love of God towards human person is that he/she desires and has fellowship with them.
Nevertheless, we cannot speak of the love of God other than as it is revealed in action, in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In this earthly life the Lord shares the lives of people and makes them to share His.
He does not love from a distance or from above.
He does not patronize people.
He stands where they stand.
He is one of them.
Everyone is tempted according to his/her character and situation.
Everyone suffers according to his/her own unusual situations.
The love of Christ is no distant benevolence.
He stood where we stand.
The resurrection of Christ is known only to the Christian faith.
It itself is not a human quality or achievement or indeed a religious phenomenon.
But It cannot be accounted for other than as a gift of God.
There is no way of defining the resurrection of Christ within the categories of human knowledge.
Consequently, anything one can say about the resurrection of Christ, will have to be rooted in the faith in the risen Lord.
If this meets with the criticism that it implies a predisposition in favour of faith.
The obvious reply, is that any other approach conceals as predisposition in favour of unbelief.
