God’s insistent love
Alleluia! He is risen!
…and yet. Tomorrow we return to ministry to God’s people. Elena will come in for help with her mother’s citizenship application. Barbara, 67, will call from a motel room — she’s paid up through Wednesday, but then has nowhere for her and her husband to go. Larry will emerge from three days of sleep after landing a room in our transitional shelter, recovering from exhaustion. Heather will ask for diapers for her twins. Tom will call at the last minute for a ride to the doctor. Each will reach out in hope or desperation, likely a mix of the two.
I am struck that in this Gospel for Easter Sunday, Jesus — the Resurrected One — does not feature. Rather, the story is about His followers. Mary, Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved are the protagonists of John’s 20th chapter. But not Jesus Himself. The central, pivotal, foundational story of our faith does not include the central personage of our faith, at least not at this point in the text. And yet the Church gives us this passage on Easter Sunday to help us understand the Resurrection — not, I daresay, as an oversight or omission.
We see these key personalities, people who spent years with Jesus, struggling to make sense of the evidence. How does this shake their understanding of all that has transpired? The last line states plainly that they did not understand. And that is how we are left with this Gospel — again, on Easter Sunday: this moment of their lack of comprehension.
As they seek to understand, the disciples are left with one another. And so are we, in our various states of confusion, struggling with the evidence. Jesus comes to help us be with one another, not necessarily to help us to understand it all. How else can we grasp death-into-life, but in community? Today we begin the season of Easter. We celebrate Jesus’ defeat of death and the promise of eternal life. I don’t think we can take on all that this means in just the one day — the Church gives us 50 to work on it. Really, though, we’ll want the rest of our lives to wrestle with this gift, the revealing of God’s insistent love for us.
Alleluia! He is risen! Now back to work.
Scott Cooper serves as Vice President of Mission for Catholic Charities Eastern Washington and also on CCUSA’s PSM Leadership team.