The Resurrection of the Lord

 The Anastasis ("Resurrection") fresco, Parekklesion, Chora church/museum, Istanbul

For those who heard my homily on Good Friday, you may remember I began with a little Latin. Fr. John always likes it when I do that. I said, “pro nobis”. Jesus died, for us, in our place, and that is a truly wondrous thing.

On this Easter Sunday morning, allow me continue to impress you with my linguistic abilities, especially with Fr. John here, this time with a little Italian: “già ma non ancora.” That was a favorite expression of my classmates and myself when we were studying in Rome. It became a sort of catchphrase among us, because it seemed, in one way or another, that every Scripture passage that we studied, every aspect of theology we investigated, was ultimately summed up by our professors with that phrase: “già ma non ancora.” Everything about our faith was: “già ma non ancora.” Already but not yet.

Perhaps we seminarians should have guessed it, but this phrase – “already but not yet” – seemed to be at the center of our priestly studies for a good reason: it is at the heart of the Christian experience. It is, in fact, perhaps the best way of summing up what the Resurrection means for us today, and tomorrow, and all of our days in this life – the Resurrection is “già ma non ancora”. Already but not yet.

Now, don’t get me wrong! Jesus has truly risen. That’s the “already” part. In the Gospel, we hear how Mary Magdalene and then later Peter and John go to the tomb and find it empty. At first they do not understand what has happened – Mary seems to suspect theft, while Peter and John are clearly bewildered. Has the Resurrection happened? Yes! … “already.” Do they realize it? Well… no, not at first. In fact, the Gospel explicitly states that even when they enter the tomb, and see the burial cloth rolled up, and begin to believe, they still do not fully understand.

How much of the Christian life exists between those two poles – believing in things that are, without yet seeing them. We believe (now) in a God who is good and just and holy – even as we wait (yet) to see the end of violence and malice and suffering. We believe (now) that, for those with faith in Christ, all suffering and pain we endure can have meaning and that our parting from our loved ones is only temporary – even though none of us have (yet) seen that for ourselves. We gather (now) here this morning, every Easter, indeed every Sunday, proclaiming our faith in the Resurrection – even though none of us have (yet) ever seen the Risen Jesus. We even will come forward to receive that Risen One in his Body and Blood … and even though we believe in that Real Presence, none of us fully understand.

These things that we believe are not foolish – they are true, more true than we know. They exist now, they are “already”, and we believe in them… but we also wait for the part of them that is “not yet” – to fully understand them, to fully experience their true occurrence for ourselves, to fully witness their final unveiling. Even Mary Magdalene and Peter and John – who saw the Lord as Resurrected, and came to understand by the power of the Holy Spirit the reason for Jesus’s dying and his rising – even they, in a very real sense, are waiting for that final unveiling of the Resurrection. “Già ma non ancora.” Already but not yet.

All of us, all of us who live after the Resurrection and before the final Resurrection of the Dead, exist in this in-between time. Last night at the Easter Vigil, Fr. John solemnly announced the Paschal Proclamation, the Exsultet, that great and ancient hymn which declared among other things: that Jesus Christ, the one true Lamb, has wiped clean the record of our ancient sinfulness, has banished the darkness of sin, has broken the prison-bars of death and risen victorious from the underworld, has dispelled wickedness, has washed fault away, has restored innocence to the fallen and joy to mourners, has driven out hatred, has fostered concord, and has brought down the mighty.

And yet, this morning? Nothing seems out of the ordinary. The sun shines upon a world that seems just as broken as yesterday. What is different? Anything? Well, yes! Christ is Risen! And his Rising means that God’s victory has been achieved even as we wait to see it. The Resurrection is here, it has happened, it is present to us now, and has already changed the world. And … it is also a sign of things to come, a promise for us that the world will not remain as it is. Even more, in the Resurrected Christ we see reality as God sees it – changed, redeemed and glorified.

Let me offer an example of just one person who I think truly understood this meaning of the Resurrection, of “already, but not yet”. The great American writer, Flannery O’Connor, herself a devout Catholic, is most famous for her novels. Yet she also wrote many letters, and in one letter, addressed to a friend who did not believe in the Resurrection of Jesus because it defied the physical laws of nature. Listen to what Flannery wrote:

"For you, it may be a matter of not being able to accept what you call a suspension of the laws of the flesh and the physical, but for my part I think that when I know what the laws of the flesh and the physical really are, then I will know what God is. We know them as we see them, not as God sees them. For me it is the child born of a virgin, the Incarnation of God, the Resurrection of Christ which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws."

What a beautiful statement of true faith – to say that the things of faith, the things we believe without yet seeing – that those are the truly real things. It is for that reason that, for the Christian who truly believes, sorrow and suffering, as terrible as they might sometimes be, will never lead us to hopelessness or despair. No matter what we face in this moment, we can find meaning in the promise of what awaits us.

Flannery O'Connor, at her home in Milledgeville, GA, with one of her pet peacocks.

Shortly after writing this letter, Flannery died at the young age of 39 of lupus, after having suffered for many years from that devastating illness. In many ways, her experience on this earth was much closer to a Good Friday than an Easter Sunday, and yet as she said, death, decay, destruction – these things are not real; it is the Resurrection of Jesus that is real.

My friends, our entire Christian life is defined by the Resurrection of Jesus, which was real, is real, and will be even more real for us in a future to come. We wait in hope for that day when the full unveiling of that eternal mystery we celebrate today is made real for us, and made real *to* us. In the meantime, may we strive, as St. Paul says, to cast out the old, to welcome in the new, to live – even amid the sufferings of this present time – always in the grace and the joy and the love that come from knowing the Risen Christ, that come from seeing the world and our lives and everything that is, not just as we see them now, but as Jesus in his Resurrection has truly made them to be.