Easter Sunday
Cycle A
April 20, 2014 7:30pm, 10:30am
and 12:30pm
St. Margaret Parish, Bel Air
Why Are We Here?
I
want to ask a simple question today.
Why
are we here? What is it that brings us
here on Easter Sunday?
Obviously,
I would not ask the question unless I thought I had a possible answer. So, I’ve got three ideas.
Relationship and More
First, on one level, we may be here because of
relationships. Coming to Mass is part of
what we do with family and friends on Easter.
Maybe it goes along with sharing jelly beans and
butter cream eggs and blooming tulips with each other. Maybe coming to church is a good part of
these relationships.
But on a deeper level, we may be are here because of
our need for relationship beyond the level of family and friends. We may be here because of our need for an
extended and even spiritual community.
We are here because we want the belonging and
inclusion that this brings. We know that
there is more to relationship and we want to have this.
Making Sense and More
Second, on one level we may be here to make sense of our
lives. For some of us, there has been
sickness, a death, maybe the loss of a job or of a marriage.
Maybe for many of us, there is the elusive promise of a
better life that comes from getting a new SUV or the latest iPhone or whatever. So, we need to make some sense both of our
struggles and of our satisfactions that just don’t seem to last.
On a deeper level, we may be here because of what we see
in Jesus. Love, commitment, caring for
the needy, finding yourself by giving of yourself – these simple messages of
Jesus seem to make sense even in the year 2014.
And maybe this is especially why we are drawn here to the
Eucharist. A thin wafer of bread and a
sip of wine – nothing compared to the ham or lamb dinner with a glass of Pinot
Grigio later on, and yet much more than that!
In some way, this is Jesus himself and we need him and
this food to hold life together. Pope
Francis says it so simply: “The Eucharist
is not a prize for the perfect, but a medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
So, on a deeper level, we are here for this. This is like fusion food – it brings about a
fusion of us with Jesus and this helps us to make sense of life.
Life and More
And third, on one level we may be here because Jesus seems
to respond to my intuition. We have this
intuition that there is more to life.
Maybe we would call it a longing. A longing is about something we have tasted
and now want more of, and we have this longing for more of life.
On a deeper level, we are here because the gospel states
that our longing has been satisfied.
Most of us have been through some tough times and we’ve come through
them all right, maybe even better persons.
Our celebration here is about the mystery of dying leading
to rising. The Easter gospel says that
what we experience now, in everyday life, will happen at the end.
So if I die to my ego and say “I’m sorry” or “It’s okay –
let’s just move on from here” – I or we so often come to fuller life. And Easter says that the same thing can
happen when we die to our physical bodies.
Jesus does want us to get into that process or lifestyle
of dying and rising right now. He wants
us to live that way and interpret our lives that way right now and then the
final process of that will almost be a natural and will really satisfy our
longing for more life.
Conclusion
So, I do
see some reasons why we are here this morning.
They
deal with relationships and more, with making sense of things and more, with
life itself and more. I recommend that
we look inside and see if this is why you are here this Easter Sunday.
