Easter Sunday, the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
Also Read: Mass Readings for 20 April 2025 Sunday Reflection by Maryanne – 20 April 2025
We Have No Other Option for Hope but the Resurrection
There is a danger when a Christian talks confidently about the Resurrection because it can come off as triumphalistic. Like, somehow just the Christians are the smart ones and everyone else is dumb because have a story about Jesus. Though I would not want to take away any Christians confidence in the Resurrection, nor do I lack any myself, I want to reorient the way that Christians think about and talk about it in the often cynical, hopeless world in which we live.
A World Without the Resurrection
One could argue that there is a hopeless, cynical narrative that is pushed by much of the popular stories that are told today, or that it is the cynical attitude that garners more attention on social media among the younger generations. Either way, even if one only accepts these realities, it does reflect a small truth of what ignorance of the Resurrection of Jesus creates in someone. Without Jesus, where truly does one place one’s hope beyond this world? Few even try to give an adequate answer, much less have even put something forward to contend with what Christ shows us in his Resurrection.
Every other religion and ideology is an attempted answer to the sobering reality of death. Even the increasingly popular modern answer of death being the answer (yikes!), is still some attempt at an answer, though a bleak one. With the Resurrection of Jesus, the actual, real, physical Resurrection of Jesus, there is an answer. This is not just my opinion, but was first explicitly resounded by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:14. This is it. The Resurrection holds everything else together.
The Resurrection Changes Everything
This is the attitude that Christians must have. Not that we are better than our non-Christian friends and family members, but we must identify with the hopelessness that a world without Christ’s Resurrection looks like. Think of how world-changing a life with nothing after life would look like. On the surface, Christ’s death appeared to change nothing, but Christ’s Resurrection, must, change everything.
