Rom 6:3-11; Matt 28:1-10
THEME: THE RESURRECTION OF MAN’S HOPE
What is Man’s greatest Fear? Many people have considered death as man’s greatest fear. However, Psychology has proven this to be a half truth. Deep inside every man, is this fear, not so much of death, but of what happens to man in death. It is not that one will die that terrifies him, but what would happen to him after he is dead. Because of this fear of ‘not-living’, of not-existing, that may happen in death, people began to invent and establish a lot of things that would keep their memories alive.
Hence, man wants to keep something in which he would, somehow, continue to live, after his death. Such inventions include grave and cemetery; struggle to have a male child (who would continue to keep the name of the father and the generation) etc. In order to give man hope of life after death, some doctrines like reincarnation emerged. In the Jewish world, even before Christ, some Jewish sect believed in resurrection (cf. Jn 11:24), even though no one knew what it implied (cf. Matt 22:23-33). Man was seeking for a way out of his fear for what happens to him in death. Man wants to keep living.
However, not minding the different positive responses to this fear of man, some people like the Sadducees believed that there is nothing like life after death. For such people, everything ends in this life, and beyond this life, man becomes nothing and encounters NOTHINGNESS. Hence, there is
no need anticipating a life after this life. Whatever man wants to do, this life is the only opportunity he has. In our context, it follows in the line of ‘Ka e biribe ndu, ebichaa ndu, amara ife aga eme echi, ka e biribe ndu’. That is to say, ‘let us live this life first because no one is sure of another life that comes after this one’. Hence, enjoy this life and live it however you want. This way of thinking was found even among the early Christians as we can see in 1 Cor 15:13-34
But even for those who advocate resurrection on the last day, as solution, it was not clear to them how it would happen (1 Cor 15:35-58).
On the resurrection day, how would I be like? Would I be able to recognize myself and the things I did in my past life?
If we understand this fear of man very clearly, we would appreciate what Christ did for humanity through his resurrection. It is not just that Christ conquered death, but he conquered the fear of man, and gives man hope of a continuous living after death. In this way, Death therefore becomes a rebirth unto a better life, a life that will know no death. Hence, Christ’s Resurrection becomes the answer to man’s essence.
But we have to remember that the Jesus who rose from the dead is the one who was crucified, as also described by the angel in the gospel reading of today (Matt 28:5). We cannot be carrying our old self, soaked in sin and darkness, and be hoping to share in Christ’s resurrection. We have to let our past lives be crucified on the cross of Christ. We have to nail to the tree of cross, our old selves. All our material baggage, hatred, envy, lust, jealousy, gluttony, deceits, lies, must be crucified for us to rise again. They are not to follow us into this new life which Christ guarantees us.
Furthermore, the women were looking for a past Jesus. They were looking for Jesus of yesterdays. But the angel told them that that ‘Jesus is no longer here’ (Matt 28:6). The Jesus they were looking for, has moved pass the side of life in which they were searching for him. Jesus has been raised from the dead (Matt 28:7). Where are you looking for Jesus? Are you still at the calvary where our sins crucified him, or in the tomb where men buried him? Come out from there!!! He is no longer man of the tomb but the Resurrection. Forget about the visit to what men did to him…Follow him in what God has done for him. Look for him, not in the sentence of our sins, but in the manifestation of God’s glory.
Moreso, if we truly rise with Jesus, we must not be found in our old ways or sinful locations. People must be able to say, ‘this our man/woman, is no longer here. His/her life is no longer what it used to be. He/she is no longer in our world of lies and calumny. He/she now belongs to another side…the side of new life in Christ’. We must, not only die to sin, but also abandon where we used to stay, where people used to find us… that bad life for which people used to know us…. We must follow Christ, away from the land of death to his journey to Galilee, the land of new beginning.
The women arrived at the tomb of Jesus, with great fear (Matt 28:5), but they returned from the tomb with great joy (Matt 28:8). Between their fear and their joy stood the news of Jesus’ Resurrection and his eventual appearance to them (cf Matt 28:6-7,9). The encounter with the risen Lord changed the life of the women from fear of the uncertainty to the great joy of the
presence of Christ, who is now alive. The hope of resurrection must fill us with the great joy that keeps on anticipating the coming of Christ to us while living a life of faithfulness to God’s love.
Both the angel and Jesus himself told the women to go and announce the good news to the disciples and to tell them to go to Galilee, where they will meet the Lord. Christ’s resurrection becomes for us, a witness, and a movement. It urges us to go out and proclaim the Good News of Resurrection, so that men would be moved from fear of the uncertainty of death to the great joy of life in Christ. Furthermore, we are to go to Galilee where we will meet the Lord. We have to move from the scene of the old life of sin, fear, and death, to the scene of new life of righteousness and life in Christ. Resurrection of Christ is a call for a new life, a life that has new beginning; a life that abandons the old life of fear, uncertainty, and sin, to a life of new beginning (Galilean life) in Christ, our Hope, Life and Resurrection.
Happy Easter…….The Birth of a New Beginning in Christ!!
Fr. Chukwuezugo Nnamah