Can you believe it?
Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed!
What a beautiful Lent it’s been to journey and let the Lord slowly soften our hearts to heal and to be made whole. As I was praying and asking the Lord what he wants to say to me and to you through me, I felt that the Lord gave me just two words:
HE’S ALIVE!
He’s alive! Can you believe it?
Somehow, after being horrifically scourged, after being made to carry a giant wooden cross in the streets, after being stripped and nailed to the cross, after hanging there for hours and taking his last breath, after being pierced by a soldier with a lance, after blood and water flowed out of his side, after taking down his dead corpse, and after anointing and laying it in a tomb with a giant stone to cover it. On the third day, he’s alive!
Jesus is alive!
He’s really alive! Brothers and sisters, I hope you get what I am saying when I say this… In the Easter season, we say Christ is Risen, not Christ was raised or Christ was resurrected. Christ is….
Because of His Resurrection, He is still living…. right now.
He’s alive!
The same Jesus who was born in Bethlehem is alive today….
The same Jesus who went forty days and forty nights in the desert and overcame the temptations of the Devil is alive today.
The same Jesus who said to the unclean spirit, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” and the demon came out of the man…
The same Jesus who rebuked the winds and the stormy seas and they obeyed…
….who healed the woman with hemorrhages, just by her touching him… He’s alive…today!
The same Jesus who said to the adulterous woman, “your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more”…
The same Jesus who went out of his way to offer the Samaritan Woman living waters…
The same Jesus who showed the glory of God by healing the Man Born Blind…
The same Jesus who wept at the death of his friend before raising Lazarus from the Dead…
The same Jesus who said to his disciples at the Last Supper, “This is my Body, this is my Blood given for you. Do this in memory of me…”
The same Jesus who then knelt down and washed his disciples feet commanding them to love and follow the model he gives us…
This same Jesus is alive… today!
He’s alive! What does it mean for us who belong to Him?
It means I’m alive! If I belong to Him, I also am alive if he’s alive!
Saint Paul says to the Romans:
“Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
That means I died. If I belong to Christ, then death is part of the deal. Death to our sinful lives, death to our false selves.
St. Paul goes on: “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”
If He’s alive, I’m alive!
The Catechism 1002 & 1003 states: “Christ will raise us up ‘on the last day’; but it is also true that in a certain way, we have already risen with Christ… United with Christ by Baptism, believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains ‘hidden with Christ in God.’ The Father has already ‘raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.’”
You and I who are already baptized are already living the Resurrection! We already experience the beginning of the heavenly life right now, right here. And God’s grace give to you in Baptism is transforming you and me each and every day. And to the extent we cooperate with that Grace, sin and death will fade away and we will be more alive, more fully resurrected!
Thus St. Paul’s counsel to the Colossians is important for us:
“Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.”
This is why He came. This is why Jesus became man. God loves us so much and wanted to share his life with us. Through our first parents Adam and Eve, Sin and Death entered the world and kept us enslaved. God became man to save us from sin and death. He took our guilt and sin upon the cross, and died for us. And on the third day he rose from the Dead. And He’s alive!
And brothers and sisters, he wants all people’s to be alive. Through baptism, God unites himself with us and makes us his adopted sons and daughters. And then Jesus commands us in Matthew 28: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Go and spread the effects of my Resurrection to all.
He’s alive! I’m alive!
Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed!
