Homily, Easter 2025
From The Pastor
Praise be God for the gift of Our Lord Jesus Christ risen from the dead! Words cannot hold the reality and truth of Divine love revealed in the dying and rising Jesus. For those who believe and seek to live with faith in Christ, the Resurrection means everything. Even for those who do not believe, the world is different with the Spirit of the risen Christ in world.
The Resurrection is the source of all Christian hope. After a brutal and torturous death, the risen Christ confirms all that he has promised us. Only after the Resurrection, through the experience of hundreds of people encountering Jesus fully alive, do we realize the gift we have been given. The Christian truth is realized because the One who was dead is now alive and known among us.
God is the source and origin of all love. In love God created. In love God redeems through his Incarnate Son. In the Holy Spirit, God in Christ lives and dwells within us. To say the Resurrection is a profound gift hardly touches the reality of its effect. In the rising of Jesus, an eternal hope is born. In the rising of Jesus, new life and identity is given to all who seek their wholeness in God. The darkness, chaos, and disorder of the world is given a new freedom in the One who has reconciled the world against our proneness to evil and sin.
Only the power of Divine love can defeat the deception of evil, the lie of sin, and the sadness of death. The lie of evil, the disorder of sin, and the fear of death instill the greatest fear and anxiety known to the human heart. These disorders, prevalent in our human nature, confuse and hide the gift of faith given us by God. They diminish hope through discouragement due to the tensions and fears that surround us. They create doubt and mistrust against the bonds of love that give our lives the deepest meaning of our existence.
The life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus is pure gift. Jesus, who became the Word Made Flesh, preexisted in the Father ever to become the redemptive Son of our salvation. God is the source and origin of all love. There is no love in the world that does not come from God. There is no lack of love in the world. All the love the world needs is given in the work of creation as a gift of God, now redeemed in the dying and rising of the Son, made evident through the Holy Spirit. What feels like a lack or an absence of love in the world is the consequence of sin, selfishness, and the deception of evil that obscures the truth of God whose love is eternal and unchanging.
Hope is critical to the maturing of human nature as we seek the goal of eternal life. The goal of every human heart is union with God. In the rising of Jesus, our greatest hope and deepest longing is fulfilled. God in Christ has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. In Christ, through his pure act of love for us, our sins are forgiven. In his name we are defended against evil, and in his rising from the dead, our path to eternal life is opened.
All God has promised in Christ is now fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. The dying and rising of Jesus reveals the pattern of our own path through death to new life. The virtue of Christian hope is not a passive wishful thinking nor an excited anticipation of things wanted but not yet seen. Hope is an active and persistent grace that walks through every darkness with the light of Christ guiding the way. Hope is most itself in the deepest hours of our unknowing. The new life of the Resurrection is only understood in the dark hours of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the injustice of his trial, and his three hours on the Cross. This darkness becomes the light and strength of our hope in Christ as we endure the trials and difficulties we encounter.
The power of the Resurrection is the power of love. Only from the womb of love can new life come forth. The unitive love of God flowing from the Holy Trinity is that womb from which we are born. The Father/Creator gives us life. Jesus the Son redeems us through his dying and rising. It is the Holy Spirit who animates the Divine life and love of Jesus within us. Take seriously your Profession of faith in the renewal of your Baptismal Promises, as well as your rejection of evil and the lie of sin. Allow these to become the identity and manner of your life as you travel the path to eternal life.
Not only today, but every day is the day of the Lord. Christ the Lord is risen and present in every moment of our lives. Accept deeply the gift Christ has given you. You are loved, forgiven, and redeemed in the Lord Jesus. In Christ, loving yourself and others will deepen your love for God. The fabric of this love animates the virtue of hope in every trial. The Resurrection of Jesus will one day be our own. In Christ, our union with God is assured. Rejoice in this truth of love.
Happy Easter to all.
Father John Esper
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