Easter Sunday

 

 

The greatest desire that everyone has, is to find happiness/fulfillment and to be with the ones we love again. This is what Easter is all about.

 

We believe that God created everything we know: the visible universe and the invisible world of the spirit that we cannot see yet, which was created before the material world. We will see it when we die. Some people get glimpses of it in this life.

 

We also believe that God’s greatest creation was the human being, because we were made in the image of God, with the gift of free will, the ability to love and the ability to suffer. God created us because He wanted us to share in his happiness. When you have a time of celebration, such as a wedding, the birth of a child, a graduation, or something like that, our natural instinct is to reach out to others that they may share our happiness. It is the same reason why God created us, to share in his happiness. When God originally created us, He gave our first parents that happiness, which is explained through the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of paradise. It says that they had everything they could ask for.

 

God gave them one restriction: they were not to eat of the tree of good and evil. In other words, they must not play God, deciding what is right and wrong, good and evil, male and female. Only God is to determine that. They needed to recognize their limitations as human beings. But Satan deceived them and talked them into playing God and going against what God told them. He said, ‘If you eat of the tree of good and evil, you will be like God. You can play God, deciding what is good and evil.’ And they gave into that temptation and stepped across that boundary that God had forbidden them to cross. The reason why God had commanded them not to do this, was because they were not able to play God. It was too much for them. God had told them this for their own good. He showed them their limitations as human beings. If they tried to go beyond their limitations, it would only bring suffering.

 

Why would Satan, who is a being far more powerful than any of us, want to deceive us? Because he hates God and what God created, especially the human being, because we are created in his image and also because we can rise higher than the angels in heaven. Our Lady is higher than any of the angels and Satan hated this idea that he would have to bow down to a human being. So, to get at God, he tries to destroy what is precious to God, that is, us. Satan has no interest in us and in fact despises us.

 

The problem with the sin of our first parents, was that there was no way that they could undo the damage. They could not reverse it. They had opened the door to sin and suffering in our world. It says that after the Fall, sin began to happen, beginning with the murder of Abel, by Cain. And then it spread and spread, because our first parents did not listen to God and respect the parameters which God had given them.

 

However, because God loves his creation, He would not let it remain that way. So, God the Son, took on human nature in the person of Jesus and atoned for that sin. His sacrifice atoned for that sin and undid the damage, thereby reopening the possibility of happiness once more. But because God respects our free will, He doesn’t force that on us. Rather, God offers it to us: ‘I have done this for you and this happiness awaits you if you want it, but you must choose it.’ It is a free choice and a very real choice and we must make that choice. Jesus spoke about this choice many times. It is a real choice and one we must take seriously.

 

Baptism is the most important way of making that choice. When we are baptized we are saying, ‘Yes, I believe this, I accept what God has done for me and is offering me. Let me have it all. Let me be soaked in it, baptized in it.’ But this is a choice that all of us have to make. That’s why as part of baptism the person is asked, ‘Do you reject Satan and do you believe in God the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth,’ etc.

 

Then you might ask, ‘Why baptize an infant, since an infant doesn’t know what is happening?’ We baptize an infant, because we want the grace of baptism, the possibility of heaven for them, from the beginning of their life. But an infant is baptized on condition that the parents promise to teach them the faith as they grow up. Otherwise it is hypocrisy. So if you have had your child baptized, remember that you made a promise to God to teach that child all about God and God will hold you accountable for that promise.

Easter is all about the choice of baptism, because the death and resurrection of Jesus was what reopened the possibility of heaven for us and we must accept that or not, but it is a real choice. God will not force anything on us, because He has given us free will. We must choose.

 

If we look around at our world, we can see what happens when we try and play God. There is chaos. We cannot handle it. Today we are deciding what is good and evil, who lives and who dies, what is male and female. If we listen to God, then we do not do that, because we know that only God can do that. When we live by what God teaches us, commands us, then our life works, our society flourishes in the right way. When we ignore those Commandments, we end up with chaos, which is what we are seeing right now. There is an order to God’s creation and if we follow it, it works.

 

If you think all this is just silly religious stories, then Jesus was lying, the resurrection was pointless, the mass is meaningless, because this is what Jesus taught. Jesus taught that God is real, heaven and hell exist and we must choose what we want.

 

There is a modern error which says, everyone goes to heaven. That’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus said, ‘It is not those who say, “Lord, Lord,” who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven.’ (Mat 7:21)

‘But I’m a good person and I love God.’ But do you do God's will?

 

So it keeps going back to what Easter celebrates, not just the death and resurrection of Jesus, but also the choice to accept that or not. To accept it, is to recognize what God is offering us, the possibility of happiness and being with the ones we love once more. Jesus continually spoke about this choice in all that He taught. It is a real choice and all of us are free to make it. We either accept or reject God. We must take it seriously, because God takes us seriously and when we die, we will be given what we have chosen: life with God, which is what we call heaven, or without God, which is what we call hell and if you think the idea of hell is ridiculous, then Jesus must have been lying when He spoke about hell and Satan. It is a reality.

 

That’s what the event that began at Christmas and culminated 33 years later with the resurrection is about: the promise of happiness that we long for, if we choose it.

 

‘Look, I am coming soon. My reward is with me and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.’ (Rev 22:12)