Homily for Easter 2010

Some years ago the TV Show "Australian Story" told of Joy and Tony Lauer who adopted a girl Tanya. Attractive and intelligent, this child became addicted to heroin. Tanya went on to have three children of her own. They were on the brink of being moved into foster care. Instead, Joy and Tony adopted Tanya's three children. Joy tells of her relationship with her adopted daughter Tanya:

"People sort of say to you, 'Look, why do you bother with her? She's an addict. She is always going to be an addict.' But they are your children. You don't get a guarantee when you take children on. You don't get a guarantee they're all going to turn our right. You give them a good education. Do you then say, when they don't take the path you hope they will, 'Well I'm finished with you, out you go'? You love them. You love them for what the are. And I can't turn that off. I love my children with a passion. And I love my grandchildren the same way. And drugs haven't changed that. I can't turn my love off for Tanya. Even though she's not my flesh, I love her" (ABC TV, Australian Story, March 2003).

I cannot explain that love. It could be a story straight from the Bible. The prophets used such language of a mothers extraordinary love to describe God's love. The Vigil reading from Isaiah we read reflects this intense love (Isaiah 54:5-14). There is much that I cannot explain in life. I cannot explain the love which makes a person remain devoted to a sick and dying partner for years. I cannot explain the generosity with which people leave home and volunteer to work in some far away place for people in poverty or sickness. Nor can I explain the joy I see that people find in one another when they share their lives in an honest and open way. Nor the ever renewed life that comes with each new born child. Life itself is one great series of miracles if we have eyes to see. Then, again, neither can I explain how people like Hitler, Pol Pot or Al-Qaeda can do the evil things they do.

On the other hand I can accept that science may one day find explanations for the workings of the universe from its smallest part to its greatest. I can even accept that the human search for knowledge may even find evolutionary and neurological explanations for the impulse we human beings have for altruism or religion. But at the same time, in claiming to explain everything, reducing everything to what we can measure and comprehend, we really end up explaining nothing. It cannot explain the story of Joy and Tanya. Nor can it explain the story of Jesus.

It is not some extraordinary miracle performed long ago that we are here to celebrate. If it were, then Easter would not be saying much to us today. But that is how much of the world looks on the Christian story: ancient history about events believed in by gullible people about which everyone else indifferent. If that is the case, then we are the most foolish of people to stake our lives on Jesus. This impression is all the more so if Christians continue to be divided, and if scandals of one kind or another take place in the Church. Then we are in effect telling people that we are not credible when we say we have Good News to tell.

Rather, what we are here to celebrate is our encounter with Christ today. The Easter Candle spells it out for us in case we don't get it. We put the year 2010 on it. Christ is our light this year, this day, this hour. We put the first and last Greek letters Alpha and Omega on it. Christ is in all and through all and with all. All is present to God. The risen Christ we celebrate at Easter is not some ghostly figure who can walk through walls. Where sacrificial love is, the risen Christ is. And if we still do not get the message he gives us the Eucharist. This tells the Easter story every Sunday. It makes the Easter event present every time we celebrate it. He gives himself to us as loving us. The Sacrament is God's pledge of everlasting faithfulness to his people.

We begin to live the resurrection when we love as Jesus loved. And we meet Christ then and there. Even though our lives may be dark and hope seem lost, of this dark night scripture says: "The night will be as clear as day: it will become my light, my joy" (Exultet. cf Psalm 97:11).

Fr Graham