The St. Thomas More Society Scranton, Pennsylvania
2301 N. Washington Avenue
Scranton, Pennsylvania 18509
Mr. Eric L. Bergman, Executive Director
The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day
March 27, 2005
The 5PM Service of Evening Prayer
Luke 24:13-35
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
I once heard a man compare being married to being forced to drive the same car for the rest of his life. He longed for the days of his youth when he could drive many different cars, perhaps a different one every day of the week. I was appalled, first, because he conceived of his wife as a mere instrument, an object to satisfy his desires who to him was worth the equivalent of the family automobile. But I was bewildered for another reason, as well. Here was a married man looking back as if his bachelor life had been superior to state in which he lived. He had obviously failed to consider the great blessings that marriage offers not only to him but also his fellow man. And even worse, he desired to exchange his life of fidelity in Holy Matrimony for the death that invariably accompanies enslavement to the sins of the flesh. He had appeared to progress and mature in life, but his words revealed that life was repellant to him. He was drawn to death.
The disciples we heard about in tonight’s lesson from St. Luke’s Gospel are not as bad as a man who compares his wife to an automobile. But they did look back. When Jesus encountered them on the road to Emmaus they had already heard about His resurrection from the dead, having received the report of the women of their company. They had even verified the report, telling Jesus, “Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said” (Luke 24:24). Of course, they did not recognize Jesus, as they were unprepared to believe that the future might be better than the past, that God might have even greater things in store for them than they had already witnessed. So as they spoke to our resurrected Lord we read of them, “They stood still, looking sad” (Luke 24:17).
This sadness St. Luke describes is emblematic of those who believe their glory days are behind them, those for whom the future is not a blessing but a burden. This evening I’m going to talk about three gifts that God gives to us in the resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, gifts that we must recognize if we are to see our future as the blessing that it is. Those of us who claim faith in Christ cannot go back without sounding like that pathetic man I heard years ago, pretending an existence of serial fornication would be preferable to the true joys of matrimony. That is, we cannot return to what we have left behind unless we long for the death from which we’ve been freed. Before us is life, and we must be drawn to it, if we are to live.
The first gift of the Resurrection is the deepening of Christ’s communion with his disciples. When I say deepened what I mean is that the relationship becomes more substantial. The disciples thought they knew Jesus as he walked the earth, healing the sick and teaching people about the Kingdom of God. When the two disciples met Jesus on the road to Emmaus they were again taught as only Jesus can teach, as Jesus opened to them the Scriptures and revealed how the Old Testament points to him. Yet Jesus revealed much more that day in the breaking of the bread. He revealed that he was not dead but living and that he will ever be present to them in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Whereas Jesus before his death was limited by his human nature - he could only be in one place at a time - the resurrected Jesus can be wherever two or three are gathered together in His Name. Moreover, Jesus in the Eucharist is not only present to us externally, but internally as well. Only after his death and resurrection does Jesus live within his disciples, directing our thoughts and our actions, drawing us ever closer to the fullness of the faith He desires for everyone. Through the Sacrament the disciples got to know Jesus in a way they had never known him before, and in every encounter in the breaking of the bread they will get to know him even better.
Marriage deepens a relationship in a similar way. We can imagine that we know the person with whom we will share our lives before we get married, but in the intimacies of the married life, if we are open to the gifts our spouse can offer us, we recognize as each day passes that we barely knew the person when we took our vows. The conjugal life is one of perpetual revelation, a deepening of the bonds we’ve forged the previous day, as we learn more and more the qualities there are to appreciate in the person we love with all our heart, body, and mind. Each time those truly in love come together they offer a pledge to one another that they will never be apart, the promise of an established communion that cannot be severed. Holy Communion is for the Christian this same pledge from Jesus himself: I will never abandon you.
The second gift of the resurrection is the broadening of Christ’s communion with His disciples. Note in our lesson this evening how the two disciples upon recognizing the risen Lord returned the seven miles to Jerusalem, desiring to share their good news, only to find that Jesus had appeared to St. Peter, also. A relationship with Jesus is a personal bond established between an individual and our Lord, but by virtue of the Sacrament of Baptism we can apprehend it is an objective reality in the lives of other Christians, as well. The experience that we might be inclined to keep to ourselves Jesus has shared with billions across the globe and across time, sanctifying them by the washing of water and the word. The bond that he creates with individuals thus draws those people closer to each other in the recognition of a common inheritance. Even if we wanted to keep Jesus to ourselves we could not, as Jesus will not be kept. He gives himself to so many that our common love for Him is transformed into a love for each other, and because of this relationship we are close to brother Christians before we have even met them. The gift of the resurrection is that He reaches us all, makes us members of His Body, the Church, and then we reach out to each other.
The marriage of a man and a woman has a similar effect. When Kristina and I got married I suddenly found myself with relatives half a world a way in a place I had never been. As we opened our wedding gifts we came upon envelope after envelope from people in Colombia. Unable to attend our wedding because of the distance and the expense, they nevertheless sent presents and their best wishes to help us start our new life together. As I cannot speak Spanish, and they cannot speak English, we would not even be able to have a conversation with each other. I could not read the letters they sent to me, but what we have in common is our love for Kristina. People that I would otherwise never know or even know about are now my family members, and in that I am bound to Kristina I am bound to them, for good or for ill, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, I am a part of them and they are a part of me. Marriage is our initiation into a broader communion. So in the resurrection Jesus binds us to our fellow believers. More than a billion of us know Him and through Him we are called to know each other.
The third gift of the Resurrection is the life that now proceeds from our communion. Before Jesus’ death the disciples on the road to Emmaus had hope that they had encountered the man who would save Israel from all her woes. Their sadness was a sign of their resignation to the triumph of the forces of evil, forces responsible for the death of the only righteous man they’d known, forces that had dashed their hopes. Jesus’ death meant that their future prospects were limited to thinking about what used to be; even as they looked forward to the death they themselves would one-day face. In the wake of the resurrection they received a new perspective, one that transformed the way they saw the world. Death had not won. Brutal violence was not the last word, and evil was not and would never be ascendant. Instead, the life of Jesus, with whom they were in communion, gave them hope that his eternal life could be theirs, as well. Our life here, in other words, is not the sum total of our existence. Because of our relationship with Jesus we have an eternal inheritance to look forward to, and no evil, no matter how powerful, can take that from us, because evil could take nothing from Jesus.
Life proceeds from our marriages, also. Naturally we immediately think about the gift of children, the fruit of God’s first command to mankind. However, even those couples who are open to life, who desire to participate in the procreative capacity God has granted to his children, some of these are not blessed with sons and daughters of their own. Life proceeds, nonetheless. The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is first a relationship founded upon the couple’s relationship with Jesus Christ. In that a spouse re-presents Jesus to his beloved, thereby strengthening his beloved’s relationship to our Lord and Savior, every Christian husband and wife helps draw their mate closer to heaven. Thus, the marriage of husband and wife, when it invites into its midst the presence of Christ, is a communion from which life proceeds, because we are for each other a visible and tangible reminder of the destiny God has in store for those who love Him. Just as a couple not blessed with children must concentrate on the great gifts they have received, so Christians must remember the life they received in Christ’s resurrection, no matter the death and despair that may surround them. Along with the disciples on the road to Emmaus we must look forward to our hope and never backwards to the death we have left behind.
Why all this talk about marriage on the Sunday of the Resurrection, Easter Day? I give you these images to ponder because the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony helps us understand the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection. Scripture makes clear that our marriages, even the most godly and fruitful, are only an approximation of the True Marriage, the union between Christ the groom and the Church His bride. Husbands who lay down their lives for their wives and wives who respond with their own love are only doing what God in Jesus Christ did. He demonstrated His love for the Church by dying and rising for her, and the Church responds in kind. If we are to move forward in hope and leave behind the death that constrains us, we must accept Christ’s invitation to be His Bride. We must recognize the great gift He offers us and then make the decision to be faithful to him for as long as life shall last, in this life and in the life to come.
And when we make that decision, no matter where He might lead us, no matter what work He might ask us to do, we must never conceive of our marriage to Him as a burden. After all, what did we have before He took us to Himself and made us His own? Did we have His bonds of affection? Did we have the millions of brother sons in Christ? Did we have the life that only He can give? We’ve gained too much to consider even for a moment what the world tells us we’ve lost. No, we can’t do everything we did before we were married, but we’ve gained our souls. May we ever be grateful for this most precious of gifts.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.