The Lord is Risen! He is truly alive!
What a difference a year makes. Last Easter we were all confined to our homes, I was celebrating Easter Mass from my chapel in the rectory, and live-streaming it from my iPhone. While we still are living in a time of pandemic, and there are still restrictions and we have to wear our masks, it is so much more joyful to celebrate Easter in person. So welcome all of you to Resurrection Parish as we start the joy of the Easter Season with a new message series, “Love Lives.”
There are a couple of things that I know about each and every one of us here today. We all want to be a person that truly loves the people in our lives. We want the people in our life to feel the love we have for them. This is why we go to a great deal of effort to spend time with them and get together with them.
There are different ways in which we express this love. Some of us spend a lot of time finding just the right gift for our loved one’s birthday or for Christmas. Even better, a gift for no particular reason at all; just to show that you love them.
Maybe we show our love for others by words of encouragement and affirmation. We are quick to point out the great things we see our loved one doing.
Some people are really good at showing love through physical touch. Maybe you are a hugger, if so this has probably been a difficult year for you with social distancing.
Still others express love through service. When something needs to be done at work or around the house, you are quick to get on it. We volunteer to help a friend in need.
If you are married, you want to love your spouse. You want to show care and concern for them. If you are a parent, you want your kids to know that you love them. And you don’t just want them to know it but to experience it and to feel it. You would want them to have confidence in that fact.
The other thing that I know about each of us is that we do not always love the people around us as much as we would like. There are times when we find ourselves being self-centered and doing what we want rather than making the loving choice. None of us loves people the way we want to love them. We find ourselves falling short of our own goals and desires to love people. Easter is all about accessing the power to love better.
We see this described in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles for Easter Day. It shows how Jesus established the Church to be a movement of God’s love in the world.
St. Peter describes Jesus and his life to man named Cornelius and his family so that he better understands this movement of God’s love. St. Peter says, “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power” (Acts 10:37-38a)
Everyone in that area of the world knew about Jesus. Crowds of people would come out to hear Jesus preach and teach. The people who knew Jesus knew that he was powerful. Jesus’ power went beyond physical power, there was a spiritual power.
St. Peter continues, “He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem” (Acts 10:38-39a).
Jesus was and is love in action. He brought power to stand up for the lowly and defended them. He had a power and ability to develop relationships with people unconnected to God. Through his power, Jesus challenged the corrupt religious systems that were oppressing people. In a world of hurt, Jesus brought healing to so many people.
Whenever you see Jesus in the Gospels, you see love in action. Sometimes his love was kind, sometimes his love was gentle and sometimes it was fierce and challenging. But every time you see Jesus, you see love in action.
We would assume that since Jesus was love in action that he would have been met by positive feelings by everyone. But that’s not the way this world works, does it? No good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes. We live in a broken and fallen world. St. Peter reminds us of what happened to Jesus, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 10:39b).
The leaders were threatened by Jesus. They were threatened by his teaching and by his good works, and his popularity. They were jealous and envious of him. They killed Jesus by nailing him to the cross. It looked like liked love had died; that love had failed. It looked love was powerless against the forces of darkness.
But then something happened – something that no one expected. Something no one saw coming, not in million years. St. Peter tells us, “This man God raised on the third day” (Acts 10:40a).
On Easter Sunday, Jesus emerged from the grave victorious over sin and death and darkness and hatred and jealousy and violence. On Good Friday all these things seemed to have won but three days later on Easter Sunday, Jesus came out of the tomb. He who is love in action could not be defeated or kept down.
Easter Sunday is the celebration that love lives. Furthermore, it is a celebration that the same power that gave Jesus the ability to love others is available to us. Through a relationship with Jesus Christ we can access the power to love the people around us the way we really want to love them.
We don’t love people purely by more of our own efforts, but by the power of love living inside us. We can access that power. And that’s what this series is all about. Over the next few weeks we are going to look at how we can access the power to love the people in our lives the way we desperately want to love them. The answer is not try harder and more sheer will power, but by letting God’s power flow through us in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
The promise of Easter is the promise that love lives. And because love lives in the person of Jesus Christ and because he lives, everyone connected to him lives forever. I hope that you will continue to join us for the next few weeks of this series as we celebrate and learn from the fact that LOVES LIVES!