​Easter Sunday A (Matthew 28:1-10)

On this Easter Sunday, we start our service with the acclamation: “Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.” Every time I say and hear this acclamation in one voice with all the members of St. Agnes and the broader churches, there’s a sense of hope springing in my heart. How about you? For me, while I find it challenging to describe what this hope is exactly hoping for, I cannot help but feel something so powerful and loving being birthed or resurrected in my heart. It feels like the hope of the resurrection incarnate in myself. 

We can imagine that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary would’ve felt this sense of hope when they encountered the angel at the empty tomb in the gospel lesson this morning and heard his message: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” (Matthew 28:5-7)

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary became the first disciples to be sent to share the gospel of the resurrection of Christ. I imagine the hope they had carried with the message of the resurrection is ever so fresh and real that we can still feel that hope in our hearts. Before the hope of the resurrection, the tomb loses its original use to keep a corpse but is transformed to be the womb that births the resurrection. In other words, the resurrection transforms the empty tomb into the womb after birth. That Christ is risen is that Christ is born again, which takes us back to the mystery of the incarnation during the Christmas season. 

This morning, I would like us to be mindful and attentive to this hope springing in our hearts. Try to locate it in your body. Is it in your gut or your chest or around your throat or your head? Wherever it is, pinpoint it and remember that spot as if you store something so precious in a treasure box. Also, notice how you’re breathing as you’re treasuring that sense of hope so that this way of breathing is perceived as a pathway to that hope. All this is a way to embody the hope of the resurrection within ourselves. 

This spiritual practice, I believe, is quite important for one particular reason. When we face challenges in life, we might not have access to that hope in ourselves. While we may fall into a sense of hopelessness at times, we need hope as an anchor so that we’re helplessly drawn into despair. It is the source of how we can carry on despite all the disappointments, hardships, and tragedies of life. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary would’ve felt a sense of shock and despair when they found out Jesus died and his body was gone. Witnessing his death on the cross, as all deaths of our loved ones leave perpetual wounds in our hearts, would’ve been a reason for their despair. Discovering the missing body of Jesus in the tomb would’ve created not just shock but also the guilt of not being able to protect him. 

But again, the message of the angel turns them back to hope. “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay…and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee.” This can mean to us, “Hope is not lost. Hope cannot be dead but is always raised. Come and look into your hearts. Hope is ahead of you, so carry on.” 

The resurrection is the message of hope incarnate through Christ. This is what Christians are holding onto. We don’t say we’re immune to any tragedies in life but become the hope incarnate for each other and the world when it’s filled with grief, sorrow, suffering, and despair. This hope, nevertheless, is not just a mere feeling. When we encounter the deaths of our loved ones and are left to live our lives without their physical presence, we hold hope for their resurrection. We resurrect the values and virtues they uphold in our lives. We resurrect their bodies through our bodies by enacting what they stood for in our lives. In this active way of resurrecting them in our lives, we are interconnected to them through our actions. We embody them and become more than one person but communion. Holy Communion functions as a sacred symbol of that union between them and us through Christ. 

My friends in Christ, you might walk through the valley of the shadow of despair during this time. You might walk into that empty place where things seem meaningless. Yet, Christ is ahead of you. Christ leads you with the hope planted in your hearts. If you cannot find a pathway to that hope, we, St. Agnes’ members and the Church are here to walk with you to get to that destination of hope. This personal and communal work makes the resurrection a new reality that unites the divine and the human together. It integrates birth and death, of which life consists, into a new type of life. The resurrection of Christ directs us to see and live this new reality, this new life. 

Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!