Reflection for March 31, 2024 - Easter

Christ's victory over death echoes through Scripture

by Sister Francis Bangert

This is the day the Lord has made: let us rejoice and be glad, alleluia! Christ, the sinless one, by his life, death and resurrection has reconciled sinners to God, who is Pure Love. Love is stronger than sin and death. In today’s sequence we read “Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous. The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal’. This victory opens the way into the fullness of new life that will last forever in spirit and truth.

We have some firsthand accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. From Peter, “we ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead”: and other clues from the tomb: from ”Mary Magdala who early in  the morning went to the tomb for the customary anointings and found the stone rolled back.  She ran to tell Peter that the body of Jesus was gone and the burial cloths were neatly arranged. And we are told that later in the day, ‘the Risen Jesus appeared to the disciples’ who had locked themselves in the Upper Room.

Jesus’ story is our story, this mystery of death and life. It is experienced in the miracle of transformation:

• a daily struggle to overcome an addiction 
• a depression that when treated reveals an enlightened path to walk 
• an up-ended job that results in a new profession
• a failed marriage that opens one to new, life-giving relationships 
• dying to old habits, patterns, behaviors and rising to newness of life

The mystery is celebrated whenever people of faith gather around the Eucharistic table where the Risen Jesus abides. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again, we sing. And in humble adoration, we profess the miracle: Lord, I do believe.

Today, take some quiet time to:

• immerse yourself in the richness of today’s Scripture readings
• just revel in the beauty of the gift of faith.

 Celebrate Easter like the huge, epic miracle it is. (author unknown)