Car, Cash, or Caribbean

Easter Sunday

           

What if I told you that if you sat in the front row, on the aisle seat, you won a car valued at $4 million, no strings attached, no taxes, no nothing.  Or that if you sat in pews to my right, you won $300 million?  Or that just by coming today you had each won your own island in the Caribbean with white, sandy beaches, a fully furnished house, and a private jet to get you there?  I’m willing to bet you would be pretty excited!  I know I would be.  After this winter, what I wouldn’t give for my own Caribbean island just to relax in the sun!!

            Now, the bad news is that I’m not actually giving those things away (no surprise there!).  The good news is that we have received something better, something upon which no price can be put.  And that, of course, is eternal salvation.  What we celebrate today, along with every Sunday, is that sin and death, which had ruled ever since Adam, was defeated by Jesus Christ.  How on God’s green earth is that better news than cars, millions of dollars or our own tropical paradise?  All those things will pass away.  But life after death is forever, one way or another.

            How do we live so as to show that we treasure this gift of new life?  How does Easter make us different?  If I had a $4 million dollar car, there are things I would do differently in my life: I’d probably spend more time caring for my car than I do now; I would certainly never drive it in the snow, which means that in Michigan, I wouldn’t drive it from November until May, it seems like.  If I had $300 million dollars, my life would be radically different, too.  Besides friends I haven’t talked to since high school coming out of the woodwork to hit me up for a little financial help, I’d have to spend a lot of time trying to decide how best to use my new fortune to take care of my own needs, and to share it with others.  If I had my own Caribbean island with private jet, you can bet that I would spend my time there…a lot…especially in the winter!!  Having those things changes the way we live our life.  So sharing in the great gift of the Resurrection should change the way we live our life.

            Part of that change is celebrating the Resurrection.  In the earliest days of the Church, Christians, who were mostly Jews, celebrated two days: Saturday (the Sabbath) and Sunday (the Day of the Resurrection).  They rested on the Sabbaths and early on went to the synagogue, because that’s what they were used to, and then on Sundays they gathered to celebrate that Jesus was risen from the dead, and would read from the prophets and celebrate the Eucharist.  They were so appreciative for the gift of eternal salvation that they wanted to celebrate, each 1^st day of the week, what happened on that momentous 1^st day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead.  As Christianity split from Judaism, they stopped observing the Sabbath.  But they still held on to Sundays as a day of rejoicing in the Lord and fulfilling the Lord’s command at the Last Supper, to “do this in memory of me.”  Just as the first day in the first creation story was the beginning of creation, so the first day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead, was the beginning of a new creation.

            I am overjoyed that we have a full church today!!  It is so much easier, and so much more invigorating to preach to a full church, even an overflowing church!!  With as many Catholics as there are in East Lansing, including the MSU students, each Mass should be full with Catholics celebrating the Resurrection!  I’m glad that you’re here with us to celebrate today.  Come back next week when we celebrate the Resurrection again.  And then a week after that we’ll celebrate it again!  And so on for each Sunday.  And even if you don’t quite have the same enthusiasm that you do today, I can promise that we’ll do all we can to help you, each week, to delve deeper and deeper into the great gift that we received from Jesus.

            But, of course, being a Catholic does not stop at these doors.  St. Paul, in our second reading, invites us to be a leaven for our world, not with the “old yeast of malice and wickedness, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  Having come to the empty tomb like Mary Magdalene and Peter and John, we are then called to spread that news to others.  We do that by how we live our life in our actions.  We do that by telling people about Jesus, so that they come to join us.  If you had a $4 million car, or won $300 million dollars, or a Caribbean island, even if you were guarded with whom you told so as not to be taken advantage of, you would want to tell others.  Again, our gift is greater than all of those, and yet you’d think we’d just received the worst news ever, so bad that we don’t even want to acknowledge it to others and try not to let it affect us.  Tell people about Jesus.  Live according to the Gospel.  Those are signs that you are glad in the gift Jesus gave you.  And people need it, because they’re hungry for God and Good News and new life, and we’ve got it!  They are as hungry now as when St. Peter preached, what we heard in our first reading.  And thousands of people were baptized at the preaching of St. Peter!  God has given us the greatest gift in the Resurrection of Jesus.  This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad it in!!