The American author F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy.” While only he knew his exact meaning, his words can be understood in at least two ways. An optimistic interpretation is that every hero has a backstory, some tragic difficulty or challenge that they have overcome in order to become who they are. A more pessimistic interpretation is that every hero is a figure waiting to fall, victorious at one moment but destined inevitably for later decline or defeat.
According to the values of the world, the life of Jesus of Nazareth was heroic in many ways. He upended narrow ways of thinking, he preached the importance of mercy and compassion, he paid attention to the poor, the marginalized, and the outcast. But as heroic as his life may have been, when viewed through the lens of this world, one cannot help but conclude Jesus’s story ends in tragedy, because despite his goodness he was finally rejected, captured, abused, murdered.
Henry Ossawa Tanner, Two Disciples at the Tomb (c. 1906)
Of course, we are here today because as Christians we do not view things only through the lens of the world. We have because we believe in the Resurrection – that is, to make the claim in faith that after suffering a truly human death, this Jesus of Nazareth was then raised from the dead; not to live for a time and then suffer death again, like his friend Lazarus, but risen in such a way that death no longer has any power over him. For us he suffered the slings and arrows of human sinfulness, for us he shed his blood, but God has raised him to a new and eternal life.
Still, it might occur to us, “But where is Jesus?” In the Gospel from John that we just heard, we can feel this question implicitly in the story. Early in the morning, Mary Magdalene goes early in the morning to anoint the dead Jesus. But he is not there. Simon Peter and the other disciple come to see for themselves, and they too see that he is gone. The Easter account from Mark says that Jesus is not there, because “he has been raised.” How strange! We might expect that after his very public suffering and death, the Resurrection of Jesus would be an event that no one would possibly miss or mistake or fail to recognize. If we were writing the story, we would make certain that all would see that the Hero of God is not defeated, but victorious indeed! And yet the Resurrection of Christ happens silently, in secret. Just what is God up to?
We can summarize his purpose in one word: faith. Recently, I saw an interview with former President Jimmy Carter about a new book that he has written on faith. The interviewer asked him why faith was so important, and he said he thought faith was the key to existence. He referenced the eighteenth chapter of Luke, and Jesus’s words, “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth?” The former president then went on talk about it’s important to have faith in ourselves, in other human beings, in our ability to make the world a more decent place.
With all due respect to Mr. Carter, that is not the faith that Jesus was talking about. If there is one thing that Jesus desired to do throughout his life, it was to move us to faith – not faith in some abstract, general sense, but faith personally in him, faith that he was sent by God for our salvation. All of those things that he did in his ministry – reaching out to the marginalized, preaching compassion and mercy – those things which even non-believers can admire: all of them were intended to bring us to believe in him. Even his death on the Cross was an invitation to faith. Why? Because faith ultimately is what saves, faith is what reconciles us to God, faith is what gives us eternal life. Without faith in the Son of God, we could see the Resurrection itself happen and it would profit us nothing. What Jesus wants, then and now, for us to have faith in one thing: that he is Risen from the dead, physically, in the flesh, and that having Ascended he sits at the right side of his Father in heaven and continues to intercede for us. It is an extraordinary claim – something so amazing that it is almost unbelievable. But it is believable, with faith, and we are the ones who believe it.
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Three Marys (c. 1910)
At the Easter Vigil last night, our church rejoiced to welcome into full initiation in the Christian mysteries those men and women who through months of discernment and prayer have come to have faith in the Risen Jesus and who have found a new and fuller relationship with him in our Catholic communion. By the power of Christ, they were sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that the faith that has brought them here will now move them, and us, to give witness to the Lord in how we live.
Like them, our presence in this church today is a sign that we stand ready to give testimony to this faith we possess. We have come to believe in the Resurrection; now we strive to bring others to the same faith. So many today are looking for a reason to hope; so many want to believe in a good and merciful God, who will answer the evil we see so evident; so many feel within themselves a longing that is unfulfilled, a desire to find something in life that really is momentous. To them and to all, we are ready to answer, to respond in faith that: “Death is not the final word! The Grave is not our final resting place! Oblivion is not the fate that awaits us! For the Tomb is empty; he has been raised, as he said.” There is no work we can do that is more important, more essential than continuing to share that Good News, which we have come to believe. And share it we must until the Day we and indeed all the world see the Risen Christ return in his Glorious Body at the end of all things.
So, “where is Jesus?” Right here. With eyes of faith we can see him – present in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit, present in the midst of this assembly, and especially present in the sacramental signs which are instruments of his grace. We hear his voice in the prayers we offer through his Sonship; we see him in the works of charity we do in his Name, in the service we render to others out of love for him, in the daily living out of that vocation by which he has called each of us to holiness and newness of life. As we await his glorious Second Coming, we look for him not in some far-off place, but in faith, we recognize he is still here.
Friends, perhaps it is true like Scott Fitzgerald thought that every human story, even a heroic one, ends in tragedy. But in the divine story, announced by the mouth of God, and written anew upon our hearts in faith, there is no longer any tragedy. There is only the victory that our Hero has won. May the Risen Christ, truly here, present among us, strengthen us in our faith, that we may always announce his triumph to others, and by our manner of living point the way to his fullness of life.
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