April 17, 2022 – Easter Sunday

Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041722.cfm)

Our gospel today proclaims that the disciple saw and believe,…. though they did not yet understand.

When was the last time you find yourself in this situation? Seeing & Believing, yet not Understanding. Though it happens to us occasionally & once in a while, we do have experienced situations in our lives that we find ourselves seeing & believing, though not yet understanding what is happening.

Come to think of it. Just for these past few recent years & months, we saw and still seeing a lot of challenging things happening in our lives. We are witnesses lately to life-threatening & life-changing experience of massive infections, sickness, & death caused by Covid pandemic that rendered our lives constricted with lockdowns, quarantine, protocols of social distancing, isolations & immunization. We see also the devastating effects of the natural disaster of typhoons, heavy rains, landslide, & flooding into our livelihood. We see also the influx as well as the lack of humanitarian & government response. We see also the threat of world war & the political turmoil in both local & global level. We have seen & still seeing the best & the worse of humanity & the world unfolding before us.

As we saw & still see a lot of things happening in our lives lately, we also yet to understand why all these things are happening to us. We still yet to understand the sense, meaning, or purpose of the life we had & having, are now being challenged & changed. We are yet to understand the ever-present losses, worries, anxieties & fears that we are going through a lot these days. We are yet to understanding why we idolize (make God of) others to somehow save us, while we also demonize (make devil of) others to blame of our present predicament.

As things happen & still happening, and we not yet understanding all these, be as it may, we cannot help but find ourselves believing not only on our own & other’s capacity to rise & respond to the occasion & be responsible for all these. Above all, we cannot help but find ourselves bowing & knelling down in humility before God, believing that He has better plans than what we had, in store for us in our life ahead.

Consider then that, in our gospel today, as they witnessed themselves the passion, death & burial of our Lord, the disciples had just lost hope & meaning of their very life – Jesus Christ. And worse, amidst their hopelessness & despair, what they saw then is an empty tomb. Jesus was not only gone, but worse His dead body is also gone missing. Their experience of empty tomb & missing body may have been devastating, non-sensical & incomprehensible to them. But they saw & believe, without even understanding yet. They see & believe. They have seen & will forever believing.

Same way as disciples of Jesus-then, this is also how we will now experience the Lord’s resurrection into our lives now & always – By Seeing & Believing in God’s Plans for us, though not understanding yet.

Easter, the Season of Our Lord’s Resurrection, challenges us then to See & Believe, even yet to understand the life we are going through at this moment now & will about to happen, for our God has a lot better life in store for us ahead. As we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection this year in our lives, we are invited to view the things that are happening to us now & about to happen ahead in the near future, in Faith in God & with Our Risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Be reminded then that Easter season is our yearly reminder of God’s everlasting love for us. God assures us that “I have love you with an everlasting love”. His love for us then is from eternity to eternity. He loves us long before & ever since from the beginning, until now & always be forever. And as Henri Nouwen would say: “Life is just a little opportunity for us during a few years to say, “I love you too, My God.” What we have and having now then is just our short chance in life to see & believe in His love & to love Him in return.  

Though life nowadays may not be comprehensible, or no-sense at all, we do know deep inside & in faith that there are more better life yet to be seen & believed with Our God & our Risen Lord Jesus Christ.

So, Brace Ourselves. Abangan. For there are more yet to come & to happen, as the Lord has risen into our lives now & always.

Alleluia. The Lord Has Risen, Indeed. Amen.