Fr. Sean's Easter III Sermon

Christ's Resurrection - Giotto 1304

Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

We are in a unique time in the church, Eastertide, which we mark by the presence of the Paschal candle. This candle designates the short time period Jesus spent with his followers in his resurrected body, and at the feast of the Ascension, while the Gospel from Luke 24 is read–“And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven”--the acolyte will snuff out the candle. And after that service, the Paschal Candle is taken out, only having been used for these 50 days of Easter. 

During this time period, Jesus reveals himself to his followers multiple times, explaining the events by opening up the Scriptures and reminding them what he had taught them before his departure. This is striking. Jesus spent almost everyday with these men for over three years during his ministry, and they still struggled to understand the events we just celebrated! Yet, they come to understanding not through new Scriptures or narratives but through Christ explaining the OT in a new way. This is similar to experiences we all have as children when you realize that what you thought was the most normal (for example, the traditions of your family), were actually not the norm. 

When I was in third grade, my father took a sabbatical year from his post in Salem, VA, to Princeton, NJ. I remember spending the night at a new friend’s house for his birthday. On Saturday morning we had pancakes for breakfast...I was very excited. Except that their pancakes were made with buckwheat, which was disgusting, and I couldn’t believe how anyone could get excited by eating cardboard. 

But there were bigger differences too. At the breakfast table, he told me that his mom practiced meditation and that her teacher, some Buddhist monk, would levitate when he meditated. Hm, this was now entering territory that I had not imagined. None of my friends back in VA talked like that. Their families did not eat buckwheat pancakes. I felt uneasy because I had stepped outside not only of my own family but a whole different culture. I ate pancakes and my parents prayed/meditated, but my family did things really differently. Through this small experience of pancakes, I now saw my life, my family, my identity in a new way. This is small. The changes that happened after the Resurrection were monumental. The Apostles had to look back and see their identity, their family, their nation in a new light, and that took time. They were building upon known reality, but now that their horizon had been expanded tremendously, their previous reality had to be re-interpreted. In the Gospel this week we see Jesus preparing the Apostles to see what was to come.

For the next few weeks, all of the Gospel selections are taken from one single discourse by Jesus to his Apostles, recorded in the Gospel of John. Even the Gospels for the two major feast days in this time period, St. Mark, yesterday, and St. Philip & St. James May 1 are taken from this same discourse. It is called the Farewell discourse for it is Our Lord's final teaching before His passion. It runs from chapter 14 through 17 and chapter 18 begins with his betrayal and arrest.

We have stepped back in time, to a point which seems strange now that we are enjoying the great Easter Feast--it is as if we are back to Maundy Thursday. And so we take up the story again, but this time in a new light, the light of the resurrection. And this makes all the difference for it weaves together Jesus' story with our story, and in fact goes even farther back in time to weave together the story of Israel with Jesus' story, thereby presenting the whole history of God's narrative to us in a new way.

It helps us to understand our family, our culture, our history. As Jesus tells them about the upcoming events, they murmur among themselves, confused: "What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith." So Jesus explains again: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. 21 A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. 22 And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you."

Jesus' discourse was preparing his disciples not only for his traumatic capture, torture, and death, but also for his Resurrection. His disciples did not truly understand what was coming, and we should not blame them for we must remember the radical nature of the resurrection! Nothing like this had happened in history. Jesus is trying to get them to expect this, to help them understand, and so he brings up this theme of the woman in travail, which is picking up on a number of OT prophecies, especially from Isaiah 26 where the prophet mourns the downfall and exile of Israel:

17 Like as a woman with child, draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. 18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. 

That is the state of Israel, God's chosen, but listen to what Isaiah then prophecies!

19 Thy dead shall live, my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. 20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. 21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

The hope of the resurrection is present! Even more, you hear the prophecy of Jesus' tomb, as Isaiah mentions Israel entering into the chamber for a little while until the Lord comes out in judgement. And so was Christ's work, who endured death so that he might conquer death and slay humanity's foe so that we might live. In his life, he took on the narrative and life of Israel. For example, at the end of chapter 16, Jesus tells his disciples that they will scatter and leave him alone, just like how Israel in Isaiah's time is scattered and the remnant left alone. This is an instance where the narratives of Israel and Christ are woven together.

Reading this passage after Easter helps us to again appreciate, acknowledge, and adore the loving work of our Messiah. And it took time for the disciples as well to fully recognize and comprehend the true nature of the event. 

Just like them (and I always think, how could they be so stupid!) we too must recognize and then take on the nature of this event! For the Church as well takes on the narrative and life of Israel. St. John the Divine also uses the theme of the woman in travail in Revelation, declaring that the woman will birth to a child who was to rule all nations and that child was caught up unto God and to his throne. The woman, taken to be the Blessed Virgin Mary and the image of the Church, suffers the persecution of the dragon but she is protected until the final judgement. So now we see how this passage for today where Jesus foretells his Passion and Resurrection and notes how the disciples’ sorrow will turn to joyharkens back to the story of Israel and is also a narrative of our own state in the church! 

St. John Henry Newman comments: "Only by faith is He known to be present; He is not recognized by sight. When He opened His disciples' eyes, He at once vanished. He removed His visible presence, and left but a memorial of Himself. He vanished from sight that He might be present in a sacrament; and in order to connect His visible presence with His presence invisible, He for one instant manifested Himself to their open eyes; manifested Himself; if I may so speak, while He passed from His hiding-place of sight without knowledge, to that of knowledge without sight." 

This is our present state of life in the Church, and one that Christ has prepared for us. We need not be sorrowful, but full of joy. Christ has promised to be with us to the end and He is. He is present with us in the omnipresence of his divine nature, and sacramentally in the Holy Eucharist. But he is also present with each and every one of us personally as the Christ. 

That does not happen locally or sensibly like the sacramental presence but in our hearts by faith. This wonderful communion happens through the Holy Ghost. These are our joys now, and it is this joy we are contemplating as we prepare for the feasts of those joys: the Ascension and Pentecost. In these next few weeks, I urge you to spend some time thinking about this joy of the resurrection we have through the Holy Ghost in the sacrament and personally. You have been baptized into this joy, but is it a joy which directs your life? Is the narrative of Christ's death and resurrection the narrative through which you live your life? Our Lord is present with us, let us dedicate our lives to see with faith, not just with our eyes, so that we may have a joy which no man can take from us.

Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.