‘JESUS REALLY DIED, JESUS REALLY ROSE’

During his homily on Easter Sunday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger of the Diocese of Albany said he can be sure of two things.

“I have only two points to really make: No. 1, Jesus really died. No. 2, Jesus really rose. My brothers and sisters, this is your life, this is my life. This is the story of what the human race is called to be and it fulfills our deepest desires,” Bishop Scharfenberger said. “It’s the reason that we cry during movies or hearing beautiful stories of transformations. It’s the reason that we always root for the underdog, the one who ultimately wins after going through tremendous struggles. 

“It’s inchoate. It’s built into our very being that somehow or other we are made for something more than we can imagine and that all of our desires are never completely fulfilled unless the ultimate happens and that is we find the life that lasts. We find the truth that never lies to us. We find that everything we truly hope for really is what God created us for and what our destiny truly is, if we only believe and accept this message of hope.”

But when evil, wars, disease, persecution and suffering permeate our world, the Bishop said, “the power of the resurrection destroys nothing but sin and death and darkness. And it is a personal invitation to rise from the tomb, to come out of the darkness of fear, to come out of the darkness of sin. Those habits that do us no good that sometimes we keep falling back in and to know that there is someone who is here with us that can pull us out of that tomb.”

We know Jesus died, the Bishop added, because the Romans were good at that sort of thing and Jesus’ disciples were lost, crushed by his crucifixion. 

“The Romans were good politicians, they wanted to make sure there was no uprising, so they got it over with and they got him down from the cross and they got him in the tomb really quickly. He was dead. He was gone and that was it,” the Bishop continued. “And that is exactly what the apostles believed. That is one reason why they weren’t even there at the cross because they knew this was curtains. They knew this was over. 

“That’s why we hear that only Mary, the mother of Jesus, and John, according to his testimony, was there at the foot of the cross. The rest were gone. Judas had destroyed himself in despair because he had betrayed him. Peter came pretty close, he had betrayed Jesus too, weeping off in some dark alley somewhere. These people were dispersed. They were down. Everything that they had hoped for was over and then it happened.”

But then the stone was rolled back and Jesus was not there and as the Gospel account on Easter Sunday — which the Bishop describes as an explosion in the beginning of his homily — states, “Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.”  (John 20:6-9)

Bishop asks, “How do people that are despondent within a period of two or three days find themselves jumping around in the street with joy? … People that live in fear, people that live in darkness, people that are afraid of death are going off into the world, proclaiming the Good News and dying martyrs’ death. Where did (they) get that courage that (they) didn’t have the night before Jesus died? All of the apostles, except for John, died martyrs’ death. They weren’t afraid because they realized that this Jesus who died, really rose.” 

Lest we think this is some fanciful story of faith, Jesus’ life and brutal death by crucifixion was confirmed by contemporary historians of the time. 

“So denial of the death makes no much more sense than the denial of our own personal death,” Bishop continued. “We really die. And when we die, it’s over. Except ... for the resurrection. That turns our narrative on its head. It changes anthropology. It changed history. It changes what we think the science is. It changes politics, it can at least, it has. It can still do it again. It changes everything. It changes lives. And the beauty of it is, is that it is a story that has a meaning and a purpose for each and every one of us individually. 

“One of the reasons why it is so important that we understand as the scripture says … Jesus had to rise from the dead (because) unless Jesus really died and unless Jesus really rose, it would have no meaning for us. There would be no purpose for us celebrating today. Because it would just be another story — isn’t that nice — but it affects us personally and that is why Jesus died in his flesh and rose in his flesh.”

In his resurrection, Jesus was changed and the Bishop asks us to imagine ourselves redeemed.

“Imagine what we are ourselves would be like if our truest and best selves really took over. And we really became all that we are called to be so that all of our bad memories, all of our bad habits, all of the oppression that we have suffered, all of the abuse in whatever form that may have taken, could somehow or other no longer define us,” he said. “That we are free from that. We are free from those nightmares, free from those bad habits. Free from doing the same old, same old and we actually can live like the sons and daughters of God as if we were already in heaven.”

As he closed his homily, Bishop — and the faithful who were soon to renew their baptismal promises — reminded all that baptism is symbolic of both life and death.

“So we rise from the tomb with Jesus and this is the Christian promise and the Christian certainty. It is the certainty of faith, truth because it does require belief. Why? Because love always requires a free act of belief. We can’t be terrified into loving one another. We can’t be threatened, that doesn’t work. We tried, it doesn’t work. You can’t force somebody to love or accept another person. So Jesus proposes this to us by doing it himself. He incarnates, the Father sends his only begotten Son. He lives a life on this earth as a carpenter’s son getting splinters in his hands, living in a street with open latrines. Being abused actually, it has been said that every moment of Jesus’ life was a constant humiliation because people always thought him less than he really was. 

“And finally at the last part of his life, even his friends desert him and he dies the most horrible death imaginable at the hands of a political agency whose specialty was death and the suppression of any freedom and any form of action that was not sanctioned by the tyrant and Jesus falls victim to that as far as any person can go down. Why? Some people say that this was God the Father’s way of taking out his anger on his Son. 

“But the truth of the matter is that this is the extent of God’s love, how far God will go to be with us, as low as we can go in our humanity. So that nobody can say however low they sink, however mired in the muck of sin they are, however used and abused they have been, that Jesus has not been there and is not there with us. He goes down as low as we can go so that he can raise us up. Because my brothers and sisters, we can’t do that ourselves. We need a savior and thank God we have him.”

To listen to Bishop Scharfenberger’s full Easter homily, go to www.youtube.com/results?search_query=diocese+of+albany.