Witness to Jesus | Easter Sunday
Here is the prepared text of the homily delivered on April 4, Easter Vigil, with the Cathedral Community of Our Lady of Peace at the Kamiano Center in downtown Honolulu; and on April 5, Easter Sunday, at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Honolulu and at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Waikane (confirmation and first holy Communion).
“Evening came and morning followed — the first day.”
These words are among the first words we read in Sacred Scripture. The first day was the day that God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Until then there had been only abysmal darkness that hovered over a wasteland.
Once that first light was created on the first day, the energy to generate the rest of creation and to see how good it was became a reality as well. Something brand-new started with the creation of light on the first day.
We very often live in abysmal darkness. There is the darkness of hatred, of wars and of human cruelty. There is the darkness that comes when the truth is suppressed by our own whims, desires and ideologies. There is the darkness of depression that weighs down on so many, and the darkness of addictions that cause chaos in so many lives.
The darkness of poverty and hunger and of so many other ways in which human dignity is discarded brings down a heaviness on our world. The dank darkness of sin keeps us sealed up in tombs, often of our own making.
In the midst of all this, we see the women going to the tomb of Jesus on the “first day of the week.” Three days before, the world had experienced the greatest darkness in its history, when chaos seemed to rule and God himself was snuffed out in death.
But on that first day of the week, everything was created anew, and the greatest light that ever shone in the history of the world shone forth with more power and brilliance than the strongest bolt of lightning. Jesus had risen from the dead!
The darkness that enveloped the bright world when Adam and Eve reached out to eat the fruit of that fateful tree was suddenly dispelled when Jesus, who had willingly been affixed to a tree, became the fruit of the Tree of Life.
Today as we welcome new members into the Church through the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist, we declare that it is the “first day” for them. They may have lived many years in what they thought was light, but only now they begin to be in the light that is Christ himself. We rejoice that they are now [or to be] drenched in that light and are experiencing their first day as members of the Body of the Risen Christ.
But the story of creation does not end with the first day. It is a story that unfolds day by day to bring even more beauty and splendor to the world where before there was only chaotic darkness. And so it is for all of our neophytes — and for all of us who have been enlightened by the risen Christ. Wherever there is darkness, we are sent to bring light.
When we reach out to couples in troubled marriages or to women experiencing domestic violence, we can bring them the only light they may ever see in their dark experiences. When we raise our voices for the dignity of the unborn and those whom many in society judge to be expendable, we shine the light of life upon them. When we work against war by engaging ourselves in being peace makers, we shine a light on a world that often thinks there is no other way than war to resolve our differences. When we care for the sick and the suffering, we make a new day of light and hope for them.
If this light that is given to us is not constantly fueled and placed upon a lampstand, it will be overcome with darkness, and we will slip back into the chaos that is darker than a sealed tomb. But the Risen Lord, who is Light itself, makes himself available to us in the Holy Eucharist, because his Body and Blood are the only fuel that can keep us going and shining brightly all the days of our lives.
The first day of the week was a shocking surprise for all the disciples of Jesus when they experienced the greatest darkness turn into the most brilliant light.
May we always be shocked and surprised by the experience of the Risen Lord as we encounter him in the Word and in the sacraments, so that we can set out from this first day of the week to bring the goodness of God and his creation to reality every day of our lives.