The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking
Deacon Robert M. Pallotti
Easter Sunday
Acts. 10:34,37; John 20:1-9
The German Philosopher and social critic Max Horheimer puts
a question to us today: "Why Should I not be permitted to wish in concrete
terms that the murderer will not triumph over the innocent victims, that sweat, blood and
tears, all of the suffering of the millennia, were not in vain, that definitive happiness
may eventually be possible for all human beings and especially the despised and the
downtrodden?" This of course is a reaction to the " Good Fridays" that
visit our lives--those times of suffering and confusion, when the ground under our feet
gives way. It is also an expression of the deepest hope and longing of the human heart,
that one's life and the life of those we love, those we never knew and even the existence
of the universe is not swallowed up forever in the tomb! It is a response to life
and those who were not permitted to live, were unable to live: the beloved child, dying at
birth; the little boy run over by a car when he was four; the disabled sister who never
lived consciously, and never knew her parents: the friend torn to pieces by a bomb at your
side when he was sixteen; the throngs of children who die prematurely of hunger in Africa;
the countless numbers of the murdered and killed. In short it a question that asks if
darkness in our final lot! Today, Easter Sunday we proclaim that darkness is not our
final destination, nor must it rule us in the present. Peter announces to us that what
looked like triumph of darkness, the crucifixion of Jesus, has been overcome by God's
raising him from the dead. And he goes on! It is not Alexander the Great or one of
the Roman emperors that is raised from the dead--rather, it is the crucified Jesus ! One
whom others thought to be accursed of God on the cross. And because of this God reveals
that Jesus is the standard by which every life, nation and institution will be judged. God
asserts for all time that Love is stronger than the forces of darkness and death!
This is the meaning of the empty tomb ! It tells us that nothing can separate us from
God's love--God will simply not hear of it! Now, death with its capacity to
terrorize us from really living, had been served notice that it exists on borrowed time,
and that its power to terrorize has been negated. The raising of Jesus also tells us that
all Jesus said and did, especially his love on the cross is vindicated by the Father. Here
God tells us what it means to be God and what it means to be truly human.
For the creation the resurrected Christ is God's first
installment on universal transformation. Just as Jesus the physicality of Jesus was
transformed into a new existence, so will the creation. Nothing created by God will be
lost, instead all will share in the glory of God's unfathomable love.
For history it means God's justice will prevail and conquer
the forces of death and destruction in nature, and the terrors conjured by human beings in
history. It means that the murderer does not triumph over the innocent victim, but both
are reconciled in the power of the risen Christ. What's more it means all the strivings to
build and create--all those human accomplishments to make life better more humane--share
in God's eternity!
For the individual it means that God does not forget me. No
matter how old or young, accomplished or ordinary, tall or small, white or black or red or
yellow. It means that all that I have become in my love for others, self, world and God
shares in God's eternal life. One writer put it this way :
" God loves a body that is marked by all the
tribulation and also by the ceaseless longing of a pilgrimage in a world which has become
human through these very traces... resurrection of the body means that none of this is
lost to God, since God loves each of us. God has gathered together all dreams and not a
single smile has escaped notice."
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is God's answer to the
lives that are filled with injustice and tragedy; the lives that never got started, the
dreams that were never fulfilled; the disabilities that blunted aspirations; and the
suffering and death of each and every person. The answer is one that casts a brilliant
light over the graveyards of history with the promise of resurrection.
The resurrection, as God's festal protest and conquest of
death and all that use it to terrorize others, and its power over our lives, not only
points to life after physical death, but life here and now! Now we are set free to truly
live in the world. We are called to make something of our lives and our world. It is God's
vote for taking our lives, our society and the universe seriously. Resurrection is the
affirmation of life, provoking us to a militant affirmation of life in all dimensions of
our existence. We can now love like Jesus loved, even unto death, because we have it
revealed and guaranteed to us that God has the final word in our lives. We can allow
ourselves to be embraced and to embrace life here and now on its terms. In the words of
Maya Angelou: " Life loves to be taken by the lapel and be told; " I'm with you
kid. Let's go."
God has raised Jesus from the dead as a revelation that
darkness and death do not have the last word. That life and love is what God wants for all
people. As Christ's Church our task is to bring this message of Easter to the world in
word and deed. All that we do to promote life, human rights, peace and real justice in the
world is an affirmation that God has made Lord the crucified.
God is a God of life, a God of love. Love cannot bear to
part company with us. In Easter then , we here God's word to His Son and to us. " I
love you, yes, you may live, you may have life!"
Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded January 14, 2000 |