"God raised him up, releasing him from the throes (birth pangs) of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it!" - Acts 2:24

Alleluia!  What a profoundly incarnational image:  Jesus was "freed from the birth pangs of death," because death could not hold him.  We are not created for death, after all.  We are created for life, for everlasting life, for a new life.  We are created by a Fathering God who would rather die than see us suffer separation, pain, and death, and a Mothering God who delivers us into eternal life.  That was the plan "in the beginning," in the garden:  for us to live in communion with God and each other.  In this springtime of 2004, we are in a new beginning, a new garden.  How do we grow in our seedling faith?

Our Easter Season has begun, and we celebrate together this great mystery of New Life as children of God!  In the fervent speech we hear in today's first reading, placed on the lips of Peter, the editor of Luke-Acts has explained the death and resurrection of Jesus as God's plan for our salvation.  God desired for all people to be brought back into communion with God and others, and with the resurrection of Jesus, that plan became a reality.

Suddenly, the disciples could tell of the Good News in a way that everyone from every place imaginable could understand.  At the Tower of Babel, human language had been confused; no one could understand anyone else.  Once Jesus triumphed over sin and death, the "knot" of confusion was untied, and retied into a "bond of unity," a New Covenant that binds us to one another and to God forever.  We can see God's Holy Spirit among us, as the disciples did in Acts of the Apostles.  The disciples could heal people, as Jesus did.  They could eat at the same table with "others" and be as one.  They forgave each other.  They prayed constantly.  They put their goods at the feet of the disciples, cared for the poor, and shared all things in common.  They were unified and at peace.  They were a new Temple, and offered themselves as a "living sacrifice of praise," through their service and love of others.

Now that sounds like Good News to me!  That sounds like new life!  How do we put it into practice?

Lent has prepared us to "put away" our old selves, so we can be born anew.  So "Away!" I say.  Away with the idea that new life is impossible, that it is unrealistic, naïve, or superstitious!  Away with the cynical view that hope for a new life is a fairy tale!  Away with the lie that violence is the way to peace!  Away with the spirits of jealousy, anger, and hostility, those evil spirits that rejoice in death, and cannot rejoice with us in new life!  Away with the sin of despair!  Now is the time for hope and rejoicing!

Today I rejoice for what lies ahead, for the promise of a "peace the world cannot give."  Alleluia!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!  I believe!

Hear the Good News from today's Gospel:  "And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them."  Where will Jesus meet you on your way today?  And how will he greet you?  What will be your response?

From today's Gospel acclamation:  "Alleluia!  This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it!  Alleluia!"