GOD IN SPITE OF IT ALL
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
April 21, 2019
“Then the
other disciple also went in, …and he saw and believed.” Saw what? Believed what? A dead body that
wasn’t there. A story of grave robbers
having taken him away—a story that wasn’t true. Fake news—or at least unprovable news.
What exactly
was seen and believed by those first witnesses to the resurrection? It could not possibly be anything that our
frail human senses of perception could capture or describe or photograph or
record. It was God in spite of it
all. What they saw and believed was not
anything that was strictly of this world, which is why it’s both so astonishing
and hopeful, as well as so risky and dangerous to believe. To be possessed of Easter faith—which is
always God’s gift and not our achievement—is to be able to see God in spite of
it all. It is to see what is invisible,
and to believe what can seem incredible.
An empty
tomb is no forensic proof of resurrection. But for people of faith, it is the reason to hold fast to faith in
God. What do we make of what we
literally cannot see? It is one thing to
see an empty tomb and to announce that someone has moved the corpse. It is something very different to see an
empty tomb and to announce that the dead man is alive again.
And in
drawing all this forward to the year 2019, it is one thing to look out over the
state of our church, our world, our politics, our discourse—to notice what is
missing (and there’s a lot that is missing) and to announce that God isn’t here
among us anymore. In many ways that’s
the far easier conclusion.
It is
something very different to survey all of that same data and to conclude that
God is freshly alive right in the midst of what can seem to be so much decay,
so much absence, so much evil—God present as a life force greater than all of
it. We don’t get there without Easter
faith. And I presume that we don’t find
our way to church here on this most holy night/morning without a good dose of
it.
So even as
we remember gratefully the astonishing faith of those first apostles who looked
squarely into the abyss of loss and absence, and came away pronouncing
resurrection, let us dedicate ourselves to the very same mission—to announce to
a very weary church and country and planet that what we cannot yet see or hear
with our senses is that which is the very deepest truth of our existence. That is faith’s gift. Let us be the heralds of Easter hope, Easter
joy, especially when others find it hard to imagine. (Our catechumens and candidates, those good
and brave prophets among us, are among our best examples in how to do that
well!)
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