Easter People

We all know from song that there are twelve days of Christmas, but Easter is a much bigger deal.  There are fifty days of Easter!  We can be wishing each other happy Easter and shouting out our alleluias until May 24^th this year, when the Easter season ends at Pentecost.

This is a logic to this.  While the Incarnation of Jesus is certainly worthy of celebration and praise, we are not really changed by it.  God becomes man, but we’re still the same.  But when Jesus allows the world to hit him with its worst, then conquers death by rising from the grave on Easter morning, we are transformed.  We become Easter people.  So, how exactly does that work?  Our readings today – the Emmaus story in Luke 24 and Peter and John at the Temple in Acts 3 – give us a clue to our new lives as Easter people.

Easter people are people who see the world – past, present and future – with new eyes, with Easter eyes.  The two disciples on the way to Emmaus were quite confused.  They knew their history and the prophets.  They knew that God had promised his people a Messiah, a king from David’s house who would conquer Israel’s enemies and reign with justice for ever and ever.  They had hoped Jesus would be this king, but their hopes were dashed when Jesus was crucified.  They couldn’t see where they could have gone so wrong.

Then, after the stranger explains the Scriptures to them, joins them for dinner, and breaks and blesses the bread, their Easter eyes are opened to see in a new way.  They see the Messiah not as an earthly king, a mighty general who conquers Israel’s enemies, but as a divine savior who conquers humankind’s greatest enemy, death itself.  They see Jesus and the past few, fateful days with eyes of faith.

Peter and John come to the Temple to pray and see a man who had been crippled since birth.  Both of them “look intently” at the man.  What do they see?  Do they see as they did when Jesus came upon a man blind from birth in John 9?  Do they simply see this man as one being punished for his sins, or perhaps punished for the sins of his parents?  No, they see the man in a new way, with Easter eyes.  They see the man as a child of God, as one for whom Jesus died.  They see him as Jesus saw each person he came across, with eyes of love.

Peter then says something very odd.  Peter asks the man to look at John and him.  The man does so, “expecting to receive something from them.”  The man doesn’t know it yet, but he is about to become part of the Easter people.  Peter has primed him to see as all Easter people see, with eyes of hope.

Like Cleopas and his companion, like all Easter people, we see the past with eyes of faith.   We see the historical Jesus not simply as a good man who lived, taught and died as all men do, but as the Christ of faith.  We see in the crucifix not an instrument of torture and death, but a sign of God’s infinite and unconditional love for each of us.

Like Peter and John, like all Easter people, we see the world and the people around us with eyes of love.  We see times of great tragedy and evil not as unmitigated darkness, but as opportunities to shine the light of God’s love. We see those who hate and despise us not as enemies, but as fellow sons and daughters of God, fellow creatures in the image and likeness of God, and though they may not know what they are doing, we see them as fellow objects of God’s love.

Like the man at the Beautiful Gate, like all Easter people, we see our future with eyes of hope.   We look to the future not with anxiety over what we are to eat or wear, but with confidence in God’s benevolent providence.  We see death not as an end, but as a transition to an eternity with the source of all joy, peace and love.

We are an Easter people, for we see the past with Easter eyes of faith; we see the present with Easter eyes of love; and we see the future with Easter eyes of hope.  

Happy Easter!  Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!