On Good Friday, the world was darkened by an eclipse of the sun. Evil was so tangible that even the earth shuddered with an earthquake. It was a day that lies and conspiracies and plotting seemed to conquer truth, when darkness seemed to eclipse light, when death seemed to have been victorious over life, when Satan seemed to have gotten the upper hand on God.
But enough of that. For now we celebrate a morning when the tomb was empty, a morning when light was so bright it blinded roman soldiers and burnt an image into a burial cloth, a morning when life triumphed over death, where truth trumped falsehood, when hope was victorious over despair, when faith championed doubt, when God put Satan in his place. For He is Risen, Indeed He is Risen! Alleluia!
The extraordinary news of Easter morning is that not only did Jesus Christ conquer death for himself. The good news is that he shares that victory over death and sin and despair and darkness and sin and evil with us. His victory is ours. He invites us to share in his triumph. If that is not extraordinarily Good News, I don’t know what is.
On the High Holy Days, many of us come to Church for a lot of different reasons: perhaps you are here today because it’s simply family tradition, perhaps you’re here because it just seemed like the right thing to do, perhaps you are a life-long Catholic, and there was never a doubt that you’d be at Church on Easter Sunday. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure everybody in this Church could raise their hands in agreement, that there are periods in life that seem more like Good Friday than Easter Sunday. Periods of life filled with death and darkness. Periods of life when we wonder about life’s meaning, when we struggle with sickness or the death of someone near to us, periods of life when we seem stuck on a cross, or overwhelmed, like life has buried us in a tomb, when we struggle to find God amidst all the chaos and violence and evil in the world.
The message of course today is that Good Friday does not get the last word. Easter morning does. Our faith in Jesus Christ allows us to be confident that evil and death do not get the last word, that there is truly nothing that can keep us from the love and life God wants for us. That his mercy endures forever and that God will always have the last word over Satan. So, if there is a part of your life, that still seems to be stuck in Good Friday, I invite you to ask Jesus very sincerely today, to enter that part of your life, to transform it. Ask him to come into that Good Friday broken relationship, that Good Friday doubt or confusion, that Good Friday sense of defeat. And to allow him to bring Easter Victory to your Good Friday sufferings.
A few years ago Pope Francis offered these words on Easter: “Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life! If up till now you have kept him at a distance, step forward. He will receive you with open arms. If you have been indifferent, take a risk: you won’t be disappointed. If following him seems difficult, don’t be afraid, trust him, be confident that he is close to you, he is with you and he will give you the peace you are looking for and the strength to live as he would have you do.”
In just a few moments we will renew our baptismal promises. From time to time I meet a college student or older adult who, though baptized as an infant has left the practice of the Catholic faith: they aren’t coming to mass and they don’t accept the truth behind particular Church teachings. I ask them why they’ve left the practice of the faith in which they were raised. And they often say, “well, I was baptized as a baby, so I didn’t get a choice to become Catholic or not.”
Well, to all of you, who didn’t get a choice as infants, today, and every Easter, we renew the promises of our baptism, we renew our faith that Jesus rose, we renew our belief in all the Church teaches in his name. You will then be sprinkled with the Easter waters, that the Lord may breath new life into your religious commitments.
The Early Christians, in fact, celebrated every Sunday as a “little Easter”. They knew that without this little Easter every week, they’d be allowing those forces which conspired against Christ on Good Friday to have power over them. So renew your faith in him today, renew your commitment to seek that life, seek that joy that he wants to give you through a living relationship with Him.
So today, the priest will ask every one of you here six questions for the renewal of your baptismal promises. The first three have to do with Sin. Christ’s Easter victory was a victory over sin, so the Christian is to seek to be rid of anything that has to do with sin. So the priest will ask, “Do you renounce sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God. Do you renounce the lure of evil, so that sin may have no mastery over you? Do you renounce Satan, the author and prince of Sin?”
What are we saying, when we say “I do” to these questions? I’m promising to do everything in my power, with the help of the power of Easter, to put an end to sin in my life, to put an end to all self-absorption and all selfishness. I’m promising to do everything in my own power to change my life, to alter my daily and weekly routines, that they can better reflect the Christian faith as taught by the Catholic Church. I’m renouncing all of those excuses of laziness which hinder the power of Easter becoming more manifest in me. We readily turn away from these things, for those excuses, those sins, are the most likely culprits for not enjoying the peace and joy God wants for us.
The last three questions of the baptismal promises concern the doctrines of the Faith. Do you believe in God the Father, do you believe that Jesus Christ suffered and died and rose again, do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church.
These are teachings the Church professes every Sunday when we profess the Creed. These are the truths upon which our religious life rests. These are the truths that give us strength in the face of temptation, they are the light of truth in the darkness of the world’s confusion and error. Amidst all of the nonsense in the world, all of the error perpetuated through modern media, all the fake news out there, the Christian can say, I know these things to be true.
We renew our baptismal promises today, and by doing so open ourselves to the power of Christ’s Easter Victory. Through them, we become heirs of the promises of Christ, that we, like him, shall be risen from the dead, and live forever. For he risen from the dead, indeed he is risen, alleluia, alleluia.
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