Easter 2025 Homily

Happy Easter. Christ is risen and I’m incredibly happy to share that good news with everyone, our regular parishioners, visitors, and especially those who don’t come to church that often or if this is the first time you have ever been to church. I hope we have made you feel welcome and comfortable.

[When we find ourselves in unfamiliar places, we can feel strange and a bit uncertain. We wonder if we will fit in. I had that experience a while ago. I was on a road trip with some priest friends. We were traveling the Interstate when it became lunch time. Someone suggested we get off the highway at the next exit. As we approached the offramp there was a sign identifying several fast-food options. I noticed one was Arby’s. I said they have more of a variety of offerings, would we like to go there? I like their Ruben sandwich.

One of my friends said, “Let’s not do fast food. I think if we go down the road a bit we’ll find a place with some local color. We soon came to such a place. We turned into the parking lot and found a spot next to several trucks carrying enormous pipes. We entered the diner, and several heads turned to greet us. As we sat down at our table I looked around and noted that quite a few people were wearing camouflage hats and other clothing items. Not exactly my element. We placed our order and were conversing when a man at the counter swung around on his stool and asked, “Are you fellows driving those pipe trucks?” I guess we didn’t stick out quite as much as I feared.]

Easter isn’t just a day on the Catholic Church’s calendar, it is a season. We like to develop our homilies or sermons in a series here at Holy Redeemer, so today a new series starts. We will preach for the next five weeks of the Easter Season on the theme Victory. Easter is the celebration of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection and victory over death and our redemption.

Redemption can be a sort of churchy word. I like to avoid churchy words because they can make church seem like a clubhouse for Catholics when Jesus intended it to be a home for sinners. Redemption is used in secular society too. Webster’s dictionary defines redemption as, “to extradite from or help overcome something detrimental.” It is used when we experience something difficult or disappointing, but it turns out good in the end. 

For instance, Raffy Dever’s throwing error can be redeemed by his walk-off home run, a bleak, rainy, windy day by a spectacular sunset, or a mediocre restaurant meal by good company and scintillating conversation. Stories of redemption are popular because we like to see a win for the underdog. 

Redemption stories are our favorites because all of us realize we aren’t perfect. We have faults and shortcomings. We don’t always live up to even our own expectations. We recognize parts of our lives that could be improved. None of us is completely satisfied with who we are as a person. We believe we could all be holier, wiser, more compassionate. 

All of us tend to want to please others. As children it is our parents, teachers, coaches, and other authority figures. As we become adults it is our spouse, boss, and peers. We all wish we could be better than we are now. That is why self-help books are so popular. 

Christianity is unique among theologies and world religions. It is different from every school of philosophy developed centuries ago and those secular, atheistic ones developed more recently. All of them have something in common. They all teach that the individual must do more to make themselves right. They teach that we are not as we could be or should be. The problem with that perspective is it teaches us it is up to us to become better versions of ourselves. But we are limited in what we can do on our own. 

Christianity is different. We believe Jesus Christ came to help or redeem us so we can be all God made us to be. During the Easter Season rather than an Old Testament reading our first reading comes from a book of the Bible called the Acts of the Apostles. This book tells us of the activity of the Apostles and the members of the early Church. It tells how they came to understand that Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection had redeemed them and won all of us eternal life. It tells how they accepted Jesus’ example and became the people God made them to be.

If you would like to begin reading sacred scripture, rather than starting at the beginning of the Bible with Genesis I suggest starting by reading Acts it will help you understand our faith better.

Acts tells us that very soon after the Resurrection a Roman soldier named Cornelius sent a message to ask Peter to come to his home so he could learn more about Jesus. Acts tell us about Peter’s instruction to Cornelius.

You know the word [that] he sent to the Israelites as he proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 

Peter’s talk shows us that even non-Jews like Cornelius and his household knew about Jesus. They heard that he had been preaching in Galilee and Jerusalem for three years. During that time Jesus gained a reputation for good. He attracted many people as listeners and disciples. Even people who were not like him liked him.

While Cornelius and his family knew about Jesus they wanted to get to know Jesus. That relationship could only come from someone with special insights into Jesus. They need to get to know Jesus through someone like Peter who was a firsthand witness who had eaten with Jesus and continued to experience Jesus’ presence through the Eucharist.

Cornelius wanted instruction from someone who experienced Jesus as a true force in their lives. We don’t always appreciate today the force Jesus was in his day. He had a great reputation for good. He moved with power and the people who moved in his circle experienced it. Jesus exhibited so much power that those in authority felt threatened by him. 

The powerful felt threatened by Jesus because he was a force for healing. The blind gained sight, the deaf hearing, the lame walked, the marginalized felt made whole. Even the dead were revived to life. Jesus preached with authority. He spoke the truth and helped people feel a new direction in their lives. Those who questioned the value of their lives because powerful people told them they had no value found it after listening to Jesus. 

Jesus was a force for justice and change in our world. He stood up to corrupt religious authorities, the Romans and the rich. Jesus had no time for abusive authority especially religious authority who made it difficult for the common people to worship God because of burdensome rules and the Law. 

Jesus was a force for hope. He told people that God wanted the best for them. God wanted them to have a meaningful life and most of all a chance for eternal life with God in Heaven. Jesus told his listeners God is a God of love and that love wasn’t only for a select group, ethnicity, or religion but for even people like the Gentiles in Cornelius’ household. Sounds great doesn’t it! Don’t you wish we had someone confronting our leadership?

Being that kind of leader naturally caused conflict with those in power because they felt threated and concerned about keeping their power. So frequently the gospel tells of situations where the religious authorities tried to test and trip-up Jesus. They would present situations where if Jesus answered one way, he might anger the Romans, or the opposite way would cause conflict with the people. Jesus always threaded the eye of the needle with skill and wisdom.

Despite his expertise, according to God’s plan, Jesus’ adversaries won out. Using false accusations he was arrested, tried, and convicted. Peter told Cornelius:

We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and (in) Jerusalem. 

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.

On Good Friday it looked like Jesus’ gig was up. While he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday looking to be at the height of his power, by the end of the week he was nailed to a cross and abandon by all his follower except one and a few women. It looked as though the status que had won again.

Peter tells Cornelius that death wasn’t the winner after all.

This man God raised (on) the third day and granted that he be visible,

not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, 

who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 

Peter says God’s power and love is stronger than death.

That is the astonishing claim made by Christianity. We believe God has power even over death and raised Jesus from the dead. God promises those who believe in God and love God they will also experience Jesus’ resurrection. That is the central theme of Easter. It is the victory and the redemption we share in through our baptism. Theologians have pondered the depths of that belief, but simply put, our desire to please others isn’t unique to you and me. We all want to be the best person we can be. That desire comes from our loving God. We want to please God, but we recognize that we don’t always do that. 

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection enters in at this point. His perfect life of complete obedience to God the Father is something impossible for us because we lack Jesus’ divinity. We can’t achieve Jesus total obedience and perfect surrender, even to death on the cross. That perfect surrender is something not even the saints could do. 

God accepts Jesus’ perfect life in place of our total obedience. Redemption is recognizing our stained and sinful past but now making our resolve to act in more faithful ways in the future. That was the Good News of Jesus Christ Cornelius asked Peter to help him come to understand. 

Christianity is unique among world religions and philosophy in that we don’t believe we can become perfect or even better through our own will. We don’t have to because Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross has done it for us. Jesus complete obedience to the Father has given us a fresh start again this Easter. Our sins and failures are not only forgiven but completely wiped away and erased. We are redeemed. 

The wonderful thing about our God is that God can bring good from bad, success from failure and hope from fear. God can redeem us. Jesus Christ wants to walk with us as we experience the challenges of life to help us to experience victory. Jesus does this through prayer and the sacraments.

If you don’t practice prayer daily, I invite you to begin. Set aside as little as ten minutes a day to start. Reflect on a passage of scripture by asking yourself how you feel God is communicating with you through it. Add a minute or two each week.

The Eucharist is the sum and summit of our Catholic faith. We believe it is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Through the Eucharist Jesus brings us grace that empowers us for victory. Make it your weekend practice to join us at Mass. 

At the end of this homily, we will repeat our ancient practice of renewing our Baptismal Promises at this Easter Mass. It helps us to remember and recommit to following them. In this renewal we will state our desire to live free of sin and to be faithful to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Even if you haven’t received Baptism, if you are comfortable doing so, I invite you to stand with us to make these promises. May these promises help us give thanks to Jesus for redeeming us and inviting us to share in the Resurrection, Jesus’ victory over death and our victory over death, too.