Matthew 27:62-66
Romans 6:3-11
Mt 28:1-20

On Our Own

No matter what our state of life might be today, we all share, from the beginning the sacred bond of family. It is by far the most imposing thing in our lives. Now, let us imagine a family that has just bought their first home. Mother and Father have saved for it, perhaps admired it for years, and now it has come onto the market, and they have bought it. It is theirs forever. It is the family forever. The kids are in their bedrooms making each room their own. Mother is radiant with happiness as she puts the finishing touches on her newly organized kitchen. Father stands outside admiring it, bathed in dusky light with each window aglow watching the family full of goodly activity and hearing periodic bursts of laughter. And he laces his fingers together and says, "O Lord, Thank you! May this moment never end!"

For the household of mankind, this is what life with the Risen Christ must have been: a moment of ultimate fulfillment. So many mountaintop experiences leading up to it .... and shattering tragedies. But now the whole family has come to their greatest moment of joy. Nothing can hurt them now, for our Lord, our everything, our all has overcome our worst fears. If He is for us, who can be against us? And beyond death, which He has conquered ... is only Heaven, for where He is, there we shall be also .... if we will keep His commandments. But, of course, we will keep His commandments! For what could the world possibly offer that could compare with life in Him?

This is what Easter means. Easter is a definite direction and experience. It is the furthest East you can imagine, a morning light and dawn that never ends, but far Easter than that. And we remember the night of His birth: "long lay the world in sin ... and ever-pining/Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth" — an awakening, an enlivening, a passage from death unto life. So many things would happen in the decades following that night in Bethlehem. But in the end, He appeared to us in all His power and fullness and Divine glory. And we knew that everything in the world was right and would be right .... forever. From now on, God is with us and calls us His friends and invites us to share His love in that bond of family cannot break.

After He is risen, He goes about with us, reassuring us, teaching us, explaining all things that we did not understand before, that we ourselves would never be able to solve or grasp. And we are possessed of a peace the like of which we have never known before. "O, Lord," we pray, "Thank you! May this moment never end!"

But, suddenly, it does end, like Holy Saturday, and in a twinkling, He ascends away from us and, then, just as quickly, vanishes behind a cloud. We are stunned. Two men dressed in white promise that He will return someday, but what is that to us?! Words, spoken by strangers! How can they begin to weigh in the balance against the loss of our Lord — all of our joy, all of our happiness, all of our peace and security. What could possibly compensate for the unexpected and sudden catastrophe of losing Him?! He is gone! And we are alone! I think of the Giotto painting of St. Mary Magdalene falling down, overwhelmed in her grief, reaching out for Him. It's title, Noli me tangere, refers to the Lord's own words, "Do not hold me. Do not touch me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father" (Jn 20:17). Her heart is disconsolate as she collapses to the ground. realizing that she will lose Him — will lose the sound of His voice, will lose His understanding gaze, will lose His wisdom and guidance .... and anyway, she does not understand these strange words "ascended to the Father." This much is clear: He is leaving us. Already, we are pushed back and may not touch Him.

Yes, many times Jesus had mentioned this Spirit of Truth, this Counselor, this Comforter, this Teacher Who will remind us and tutor us. But what could that matter to us .... if it is not Him?! Anyway, we do not understand Who or What such a Figure might be. (In fact, it would be well into the fourth century until we would have a settled doctrine on the Holy Spirit.) All that matters to us now is a slowly dawning truth that He will be leaving us — the Shepherd on Whom we could always rely, Who stilled the winds and calmed the seas and Who pledged always to seek the stray lamb, for not one, He said, could ever be lost.

But now .... we are lost, scattered on a hillside, a flock without a shepherd. And we finally we understand the nervous demands and edgy emotions of the Disciples, who flailed within their spirits demanding that He explain more. Who and What is the Father? When will the Kingdom of Israel be restored? Where exactly are you going? Why can't we come? And, then, on that first Ascension Thursday, He disappeared. And we were alone. And then the sun set, and our alone-ness only deepened. The next day the sun rose, and, no doubt, they looked for Him around every corner, for that is the way He appeared to them following His Resurrection. But He does not appear, and the world, therefore, was filled only with emptinesses. And again the sun set. And each morning from there on would hold the same empty promise.

These hours we are not in on Holy Saturday — to be repeated during the ten days between the Ascension of our Lord and Pentecost — are a time of deep, personal crisis. We do well to recall that the Holy Spirit will remind us of everything we have already learned. We will need these thoughts and words, for this loss, this alone-ness is unbearable. when He has ascended. The revelation for us is that in this grief we realize that the path to Heaven is not so much a following Jesus as a crowd, trailing Him from place to place to see what He will do next. The path to Heaven is an interior path, a spiritual advancement. And spiritual growth can never occur without a crisis. Spiritual growth is a becoming, and by that fact is also an undoing. Our old self must be dismantled. We are undone! A whole world we knew must die, so that all that is good and noble and worthy within us might finally be free. Do you know what I mean when I say distractions? Do you know what I mean when I say competing demands on our attention? All that is good and noble and worthy within us yearns to be free.

Once we enter those depths of conversion, what is next for us? A generative swirl of creative love and energy surrounds us as we seamlessly enter an eternal communion with the Lord Who seamlessly enters the Father as the Father enters Him. We participate in this power of love so great that it made an entire world that was good. This is the essence of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity proceeds from the love of the Father with that same love He bears for the Son, which the Holy Spirit enfolds into a Divine Unity. And into this love we are to be enfolded. But we have been prepared for this all our lives. This is the love of family as every member of the family becomes enfolded in that original love which the Mother has the for Father and the Father has for the Mother.

Listen again to Jesus' words on the point of departure:

I'll tell you a secret. When I hold up the bread and then the wine before the icon of the Mystical Supper, I whisper a little prayer. Ut unum sint, that they all, we all, might be One .... in that same Oneness which the Risen Christ had promised.

We all began in the warmth of family: made to seek union-in-love with our parents and our brothers and sisters. And from that moment God started us down a path that would lead to the One Whose Name has been made known to us.

He continues to call us .... each day, everyday, if we would but listen. For Our God desires that each of us abide in His love, to return Home, to rejoin Family, where He Is and, therefore, we must be.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit.