On Good Friday, everything seemed finished. The disciples had watched Jesus suffer on the Cross and be put to death. They saw his lifeless body being laid in the tomb. Their Lord, their savior, their Master, the one in whom they had placed all their hope. Everything they believed about Jesus and what He was sent to accomplish was seemingly lost. They were devastated. Fear took over. They locked themselves away, hidden from the world. And then, on Easter Sunday, they hear the unimaginable. The tomb is empty.

The Resurrection isn’t just something that happened to Jesus, it wasn’t just a part of His story. The Resurrection changed the course of human history and it changes everything for us. Because the fact is, if Jesus is truly risen, then death no longer has it’s hold on us. It means that our sins aren’t permanent. The failures and mistakes that make up our lives aren’t final. The things in our hearts that feel dead, broken, beyond repair aren’t beyond His power. His love and mercy, His authority, His reign is more powerful than anything. That’s what this day means for us as Christians.

We shouldn’t just ask ourselves whether we believe that Jesus rose from the dead? The real question is: do we live like we believe it?

I think it’s our human nature to stay focused on the negative things in our lives. So often we are stuck living like Good Friday people. We stay trapped in fear, in sin, in old habits that we can’t seem to shake. We keep certain parts of our hearts sealed off like tombs, not allowing anyone in, especially the Lord. We become so convinced that we are beyond hope, that nothing in us could possibly change.

But, we are not called to live like Good Friday people. Pope St. John Paul II used to say: “We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.” What does that mean? It means we have to stop identifying who we are by our past and start living in the freedom that Jesus has won for us. It means claiming the identity that we are God’s sons and daughters, remembering the promise that there is more than what this life can give us. It means that we refuse to let the darkness win, even when life is hard, to keep persevering in the struggle, to keep pushing forward with the Lord, rooted in His love for us.

Because the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you. It’s what gives us the grace and the strength to stay focused on the Lord when all else seems lost.

Today, all of us have come to Mass for a reason. Maybe we’re looking for peace or hope. Maybe we’re lost and don’t know which way to walk. Or maybe we have no idea what we want or what we’re looking for. So, I beg you, please don’t walk out of here unchanged. Jesus wants to come into our hearts especially today. Let His Resurrection actually touch something in our lives. Let it challenge us. Let it move us. Let it bring something back to life that we may have given up on.

The tomb is empty. Jesus is risen and is alive. Now it’s time for us to live like it.

Photo: Empty Tomb, Fr. Daniel Ciucci. Used under Unsplash license.