Homily for the Week of April 8, 2012

ASTER VIGIL AND SUNDAY , 2012
First Reading: Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Romans 6: 3-11
Gospel: John 20:1-9

The coach entered a high school football locker room following a loss and said to the sad and gloomy team, I just want you to know that I am proud of the way you guys played this afternoon. We might not have won on the scoreboard, but we did prove to a lot of people what we are capable of. Today’s game was a moral victory.

A freshman sitting on a bench next to the quarterback asked, “What’s a moral victory?” The senior responded, “That’s what a coach calls a game we lose.” It’s hard to find comfort in “moral victories.” When scores are published, there are only winners and losers, success or failure.

Mark’s Gospel could be called the “Gospel of Failure,” but the failure does not belong to Jesus — it is ours. From beginning to end, Mark’s Gospel records the failures of those who followed Jesus Christ. The Passion according to Mark, which we read on Palm Sunday, told the story of one defection after another. Judas betrayed Jesus. Most fled when Jesus was arrested. The young man who fled naked when the soldiers tried to grab him is Mark’s way of saying that the disciples bolted and left everything behind that Jesus had given them. We read especially of Peter who denied Jesus while in the high priest’s courtyard. The number three was used to describe something that is absolute, and Jesus had said to Peter, “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter could not have been a bigger failure.
Synopsis
We think of Peter as being the head Apostle, but Mark actually sets him up as the best example of all of disciples who don’t ever seem to get what Jesus is really about — although Peter almost got it right once. When Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am,” Peter’s response was heartfelt that he thought that Jesus was the Messiah. As soon as Jesus told Peter exactly what that meant, that He “must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, be killed, and rise after three days,” Peter took Jesus aside to rebuke Him. In turn, Jesus had to rebuke Peter by saying to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”

In the Gospel reading for the Easter Vigil, Mark describes three women who felt both grief and defeat: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. They felt grief for the loss of Jesus, but they also thought that, with His death on the cross, the kingdom that He had represented was defeated as well. This sense of defeat is heightened in the women’s realization that they might not be able to anoint Jesus’ body because of the stone used to seal the tomb. The irony that Mark creates is that, in going to anoint Jesus, the women were not simply fulfilling a burial ritual. “Christ” means “anointed.” The women were going to announce the Anointed One!

In the tomb, the women encountered a young man dressed in white. They did not know who he was, but we know. Mark tells us that this is a divine messenger when the young man says, “Do not be amazed.” This is the greeting of divine messengers. The Divine Messenger announced that Jesus had been raised and had gone before them to Galilee. The women’s response? “Then they went out and fled from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

This sentence ends what may have been the original ending of the Gospel of Mark. The additional verses may have been added to make clear “the rest of the story.” For Mark, however, this moment begins the rest of the story.

Mark’s Gospel starts with the words, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” This line does not mean that the Gospel started right at that line. The real story begins at the conclusion of the Gospel. The real Gospel begins with the announcement that the risen Jesus has gone before the disciples to Galilee. This is the Gospel: the story continues.

The women were told to go and tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus would meet them in Galilee, at the place where everything began. The disciples might have seemed failures for having abandoned Jesus and fled, but Jesus had not abandoned them. In the end, what is not written by Mark, but what we know, is that Peter would finally get it, and so will we. Easter tells us that Jesus did not suffer defeat. It also tells us that Jesus will not let us fail. He is on the road ahead of us. We have only to go and meet him.
Easter is at the heart and center of the Christian faith. Every year we hear the same message from the Bible and probably the same words from this pulpit. Every year we celebrate the same important feasts, but we are not in the same spiritual place that we were in the previous year. For good or for ill, we change from year to year, and so does the impact of the feast upon our consciousness and our spiritual development. We are simply not the same person. In the end, however, the Resurrection is not about newly discovered bones but about the transformation of one’s life. Faith in the Resurrection requires us to live as Jesus did, dying to self for the sake of others, in the hope of rising again.

Jesus did something the world had never seen. He totally emptied himself of his own needs. He lived completely for others. He died for others. He never allowed selfishness to have any part of his existence. This lifestyle resulted in his death at the hands of those who could not bear his holiness.

The Easter candle which is the center of our Easter celebration is a symbol of our life in Jesus. The candle will be used at all Baptisms and Funerals as a symbol that we have begun a new life that will lead to everlasting life. We now have the opportunity to remind ourselves again of what happened the day we were Baptized, as we are now invited to state our faith publicly.