Easter Vigil Part 3 of Triduum 2022 April 16, 2022
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
[See part 1 here]
[See part 2 here]
Thursday night, we began the most sacred time of the year – the Paschal Triduum – and began also an extended reflection on the meaning of freedom and authority revealed in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Through the washing of the disciples feet and the institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, we saw that authority is truly a service to the people over whom it is wielded. It is meant to bring others to maturity, to draw them past selfish desires to genuine virtue and holiness. This is what leads to the freedom of being able to truly love.
It continued with Christ’s going to the cross. Still wielding his authority, Jesus modeled a freedom to love that even fear of death and suffering could not constrain. We recalled that love means to desire and to act for the genuine good of another – even if they themselves don’t understand what that is. In his crucifixion, praying for his murderers and arranging for the care of his mother and disciples, we saw that real authority is the power and freedom to love no matter what. Because this world is fallen, the freedom and authority to love requires the cross.
Now we come to what the resurrection tells us. In short, even when the fallen world does kill someone for insisting on authentic love, their freedom is unhindered by death. This conformity to the authority of Jesus Christ means they overcome death and continue to love! That’s the point of Easter. Not just that Christ has paid the unpayable debt of our sin – he did do that – but also that he is living proof that human beings do not need to be afraid of death! Human beings can become capable of loving in a way the world cannot stop. This is the Gospel – the good news! Why? Because what makes a person truly happy? Love. And love that cannot be killed means happiness that does not end.
Be wary that you don’t hear and speak these words in the way the world means them. No, the original divine meaning of love as willing the good of another… the original divine meaning of happiness as union with the infinite God who alone satisfies our unending desire for love.
It is why, when Peter and John first hear the news, they run to the tomb. Having lived with Jesus for years, they’ve already experienced a love unlike the world’s. Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes overpowering, sometimes filled with stern rebuke and incredible demands, the love Jesus showed them moved them to abandon everything else the world offered as a way to freedom, authority, and happiness. It wasn’t just the miracles or fulfilled prophecies or clever teachings. It was his love, often captured in a gaze. Something in the way he looked at the Apostles that resonated so deeply, it pulled them from their old lives in a single moment. It was a gaze with authority, real power flowing from him. The power to do what is best for us even when we ourselves don’t know what that is or actively try to turn away from it.
So, hearing that his body was gone – the body, the face, the eyes that once looked at them with such power – hearing that this body is gone, they must go and see and they must do so quickly. Freed and empowered by love, they run… but [as John’s Gospel will tell us tomorrow morning] John runs more quickly. Why? Because his love is greater. He arrives first. And then the strangest thing happens. He waits. He waits for Peter. Why? If love brought John this far, why wait now? Simon Peter denied Jesus and he ran slower, should he really be the first apostle to go in? John was the only apostle to actually stay with Jesus at the foot of the cross, why wouldn’t he have that honor? Because of Thursday night… because of the years before that. Because of Christ’s own words to Simon that changed his name to Peter in the first place. Precisely because John so loved Jesus and his brother Apostles, John understands love’s connection to authority and to freedom.
Love can bring us to the mystery of Jesus Christ. The desire for what is truly good can move us – even move us quickly! – to the point of seeing that Jesus is something more than we ever imagined. But to enter into that mystery, to begin to understand what faith tells us of this man, to have the freedom to embrace him in the fullest way… we need his authority. Only by the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are we set free from sin. Only by his authority as son do we have any knowledge of the inner life of God himself – the Trinity. Only by his authority do we gain understanding of the sometimes difficult scriptures written before him and brought by him into the new covenant.
And that authority did not die with him. It was given in part already to the Apostles, but especially to Simon, now called Peter. Over the next 50 days, Jesus will entrust that authority more fully, confirm their understanding, deepen their love, and finally invest them fully at Pentecost. We see the Apostles speak with this authority, saying things like “it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us” when making a decision that every follower of Christ must abide if they would be true followers.
This is the Gospel, not just that Jesus was born, suffered, died, was buried, rose from the dead, and then ascended into heaven. He did not just pass through and leave us with ideas and behaviors. He did not even write anything down. He left us a people, a spiritual family. Like any family, there is authority. Father and Mother who wield real power over their children, but do so for their sake… to instill in them truth and virtue so that they have real freedom to love… to love in the most authentic way even when, out of scorn for a love they don’t understand, the world decides to kill them for it.
The authority of the Church often seems to restrict freedom. But true freedom requires virtue, right knowledge, and perhaps most difficult for us to accept – freedom requires something worthy to obey. As we reflected on Thursday, human beings are built to obey something. If not obedient to God’s own authority, they will obey something unworthy. Jesus knows this – he designed us as embodied persons. It’s why he took on a body and why he raised it from the dead, and made sure to show it to us. Our bodies remain eternally relevant to our happiness.
So our obedience must be embodied. We must have the freedom to make acts of faith, hope, and love in an embodied way. We have faith in someone, not just an idea. We have hope reflected in action, not just emotion. We love in actual relationships, not just in our imaginings. Jesus is with us for 40 days, but then he ascends. So whom do we obey, trust, hope in, and love? Those invested with the same authority as himself. The Apostles and their successors.
Yet, the faults of such leaders often make us question whether that authority is lost. So we see that Peter denied Jesus and, even before he was reconciled at the seashore, John still showed deference to him. He will soon be told to tend the sheep, to be the shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd, yet he entrusts that role to a mere human being. This was not to delay his absence by a single generation, but to be an ongoing reality, each generation given some real place, the actual freedom to grow in the necessary practice of obedience. Not blindly, but with a conscious, informed choice to acknowledge the authority of God, whether the person entrusted with it wields it well or wields it poorly. To embrace that authority not for their sake, but our own so that we have the freedom to love as Christ himself loved, who did as his Father willed, obedient even to the point of death on a cross.
Why belabor this point? Because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! His obedience conquered death. So can ours. Even when, like Jesus from Judas, we suffer from those given authority, the victory is ours in the end. Rejoice, Christ is risen! Rejoice, he is with us now! In his authority made present, we find freedom to love him and our neighbor. In his authority made present, we find freedom in the forgiveness of sins. In his authority made present, we have the freedom to receive him in Holy Communion. Christ is risen and he is here.