I’m sure the last thing might think you want right now, after nine long scripture readings, would be yet more salvation history laid out for you. But we should be honest, and say that deep down, there’s a part of the story we do still want to hear. Jesus’ resurrection comes nearly at the end of the scriptures we have, but now here we are two thousand years later, in a very different world, and the missing reading we want to hear now is, what will happen to us, what’s the end of the story?
We know the resurrection is the end of our story, too, but frankly, our imaginations fail us. The writers of our gospels did a brilliant job portraying Jesus’ death, and we can see it and feel it since we know death, and Jesus’ death is like so many sad deaths that have touched us. But when it comes to the resurrection, the gospel’s descriptions seem unlike anything we know, and in a way they let us down. Suddenly, Jesus is there, again, not the way he was before but reborn into something new. And even though he is new, he can be touched just as physically as you can touch the person next to you. In this gospel of Matthew, he is glorious and recognized immediately; in John’s gospel he is ordinary-looking enough to be mistaken for a gardener by a woman who knew him as well as anyone. And then just as suddenly he is gone, a sign to us about our future, and yet here we are in the present.
When all is said and done, what do we know about our future life as resurrected people? Here is what Jesus’ resurrection tells us: Resurrection isn’t some spiritual, nonphysical phenomenon, some hazy world after death where we live some kind of disembodied life, floating around somewhere unfamiliar. That’s not really what we want anyway. Instead, our future life is a complete transformation of us and this world we already know, a new heaven and a new earth. The resurrection is us, our bodies changed into something new, the same but not the same, not liberated from this world off in heaven somewhere, but living in this world transformed, with all the evil and injustice purged away from it. It’s hard to believe that the God who somehow created this world back in that first reading will in essence be creating it all over again. But that is the promise, that’s why we’re here, to look for signs of that future when they become clear to us, to live as if we were already citizens of that new world.
You could say it sounds too good to be true, and yet so is all the love that already surrounds us. You could also say it’s too hard to imagine, but on the other hand maybe we know more about resurrection than we think we do. Because we have seen people transformed. We have met old people who have somehow to have already been filled with that inner light that surrounded Jesus, we have met people whose relaxed joy and complete dedication to serving others seems to come as naturally to them as breathing and eating. If you see people like that, you are seeing a sign of what life as resurrected people will be for us.
There is a reason why Easter is the time every year when we baptize adults. It’s because baptism is an image of the resurrection, it makes us new people, better, stronger, ready for a different life. That reading we heard from the letter to the Romans, tells us that baptism is death and resurrection all in one moment. So if on this Easter you want still more signs of the new life that is coming, think of the remarkable and intelligent people each year who are somehow touched by Jesus and come here to be initiated into this church.
You should understand something: These people are smart, they’re not pushovers, every year I have the privilege of being one of the people who gets to meet them and teach them and let me tell you, they don’t take the official line on anything without a fight. This year I went at least two rounds with them on the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and I took some serious hits. In fact, I’m not sure I didn’t go down entirely on that one. But think how much better off we all are for having these new Catholics with us. Their new life is new life for all of us, too. So as we go on now to welcome them into communion with us, remember never to stop looking for signs of the future resurrection. They surround us tonight in this very place.