Easter Vigil, B March 30, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
This is part III of a series for the Paschal Triduum.
Part I of the series here.
Part II of the series here.
Love endures. At the Last Supper, Jesus revealed to us the new commandment of love and so we’ve taken love as the theme of this Paschal Triduum. That new love called us to serve in a way that makes another person our “own.” Because such love cannot set aside the truth, that love turned deadly yesterday when it brought Jesus to the Cross since, by our sins, we are willing to kill to avoid the truth. Now we reach the climax of our reflections on Love for this Paschal Triduum. Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and raised shows us that love endures.
Rejected, betrayed, slandered, murdered, and buried, what good is love to Jesus? That question doesn’t even occur to these women early on Sunday morning. They go to the tomb, ready to anoint him, to fulfill the duties placed on them by law and personal affection. Not that they’re entirely oblivious to obstacles. “Who will roll back the stone for us?”
They ask, but they don’t wait for an answer. They do not turn back. They do not have a plan. They do not let their precious foresight, their shrewd prudence delay their love even a moment. Whatever they expected, they persevered and when they arrived and looked up, there was no more obstacle.
So, they pressed on. And what did they discover? A messenger, a man in white, an angel. “Do not be amazed” he says. How exactly are they supposed to feel? If resurrections and angelic appearances aren’t amazing, what is? They are not only amazed, but afraid. Yet they are given a message, a proclamation of where to turn next. Unable to love Jesus by anointing his body, they are asked to love him by telling his disciples where to go, to persevere just a bit longer.
But their endurance seems to falter. Though we don’t read it tonight, the next verse tells us these women fled without telling anyone. They fled, that is, until Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene. With this encounter the gospel is renewed and carried by Mary to the Apostles who, though they do not believe her at first, do eventually come to know the truth and go to Galilee as the Lord has commanded them.
Love endures. When someone we love dies, we grieve. You can say that grief is love persevering beyond death. Yet this is not the kind of enduring love revealed in Jesus Christ. No, in comparison to the love of Jesus – the love that makes his own even those who would betray him, the love that is willing to die to reveal to the truth to those he loves – in comparison to that love, ours falters. The love Jesus offers does not simply grieve in the face of death, it overcomes it.
For all they’ve seen, not one of Jesus’ followers manages this kind of enduring love. Not one of them believes that Jesus is greater than death. There is but a tiny glimpse, a pale shadow in the way these women are willing to go to the tomb despite the stone blocking the way. Yet, even with that stone pulled away by God’s power, and despite the angelic message, they are initially afraid, unable to love Jesus enough to believe he is alive… alive not just in their hearts, but literally, physically alive!
No, it is only the love of Jesus Christ in us that is capable of that kind of perseverance. The love of these women only endures when Christ comes to them, instilling in them the faith and hope it requires. For that is what real love requires: faith and hope. That is indeed the very meaning of Christian Perseverance: love that sees beyond human limits through the eyes of faith; love that endures beyond human limits with the strength of hope.
To love one another as Christ loves us is to persevere in truly investing in and serving one another despite the risk of betrayal. To love one another as Christ love us is to endure the hatred and even death inflicted on us for the sake of those we love. To love as Christ loves us is to learn to see the truth – and love it – even in those we want to hate. Finally, to love as Christ loved us… to love with His invested, hatred-defying love is to endure all things because, when all things have tried to destroy it, this love rises from the dead.
It is this love that appears to us tonight. We do not, like the women on their first trip to the tomb, simply remember how Jesus loves. We encounter Jesus who is love. We encounter his conquest of death in the baptism of our catechumen, Trey. We encounter his hatred-defying courage to proclaim the truth of love in the Confirmation of Trey. We encounter… we receive into our very selves Jesus who makes us his own through the most Holy Eucharist. By that love we are healed of our betrayals. By that love we are saved from all hatred. By that love we endure all things, even death, because truly, we have already died with Christ so that we can live for God. All we have to do now… is persevere, enduring always in love.