Acts
10:34 - 43
Psalm 118:1 -2, 14 – 24
Colossians 3:1 – 4
Matthew 28:1 – 10
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on Sunday April,
9, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“SEPARATION: A FAILED ATTEMPT”
(Homily text: Matthew
28:1 - 10)
Quite often in our household, the
comment is made that goes something like this: “We are victims of the packaging
industry.” What we mean by that remark is that, oftentimes, getting an item out
of the packaging it comes in is a struggle. Sometimes, it’s necessary to try to
figure out where to begin. At other times, a good tool is necessary to cut
through the various levels and types of wrapping.
For example, try opening the plastic
bag that cereal comes in these days. (Time was when cereal came in a box – like
it does today – but it was contained in a paper bag.) These days, cereal is
contained in a plastic bag inside the box. If one tries to rip open the plastic
bag, the result is likely to be cereal, scattered all over the place. In my
experience, a pair of scissors or a good knife are needed to get the bag open
without a mishap.
Which brings us to the subject of
Easter Sunday, and our celebration of the Lord’s rising to new life from the
grave, following His certain death on the cross on Good Friday, and His known
burial place on Friday afternoon.
If we do some theological[1] work
around the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we come to the conclusion
that the Evil One lacked the tools necessary to tear apart the link between
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Son’s link to the Father. The Devil
lacked the power to separate the Son from the Father, and – while we’re at it –
the Evil One also failed to separate the Son’s oneness with God and our
humanity.
The devil’s plans failed on both
accounts.
By engineering Jesus’ death on Good
Friday, the Devil’s hope was to put Jesus away forever, consigned to a place in
hell, the place where sin is banished. After all, no one got off a Roman cross
alive, and we know from the eyewitness accounts[2] of
the events of Good Friday that Jesus’ death was a public one, and that He was
completely and totally dead.
If Jesus was human, but not divine,
it’s likely that the Devil’s plan might have worked. But hidden in Jesus’
nature is that other nature, that divine one, that one which is one with the
Father. So, it turns out, in trying to snatch Jesus from the living, in an
attempt to claim yet another human victim, the Devil overreached. Jesus’ divine
nature defeats the plot of the Evil One. Jesus cannot be separated from the
Father, it turns out.
Neither can Jesus’ divine nature be
separated from His human nature. The reality of the Lord’s resurrection on
Easter Sunday morning, with His body intact, assures us that the Lord’s
Incarnation (that is, His taking on our humanity to the full) is a permanent
state. Not even a death on the cross can separate that – can tear the two apart
– either.
No wonder that Easter Sunday has been
such a great cause for celebration! If the Lord Jesus cannot be separated from
the Father, neither can all Christian believers be separated from the Lord
Jesus and from the Father. Moreover, our human condition, complete with its physical
realities, are important to God. We can never lose those, either, for God will
preserve us, whether we die and decay, or whether we are alive when the Lord
Jesus returns.
Happy Easter!
Thanks be to God.
AMEN.
[1] Theology has to do with the study of God’s nature, and God’s activity in
human affairs. Oftentimes, studying how God works gives us clues into His
nature. (I hope I’m not making the definition of theology too simple with this
statement.)
[2] Both the accounts in Holy Scripture and also from secular sources..
