Risen with Him

On this Easter day we want to receive the news of Jesus Risen not as an announcement of an event from long ago and far away.  We want to receive this Good News now:  “This, today, is the day the Lord has made!”

St. Paul comes to our help in the passage given for Easter Sunday from the Letter to the Colossians.  In those few brief lines, St. Paul uses the word “with” three times, each use building upon the previous one and leading to an increasing depth of meaning and feeling. 

“You were raised with Christ.”  No isolated event from long ago and far away—the resurrection of Jesus in our own flesh and given to us in the grace of baptism assures us that resurrection is ours as well.  Mysteriously, we already share in the resurrection.  What might that mean?

“Your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  Not a vague event in the past or simply the promise of life in a distant future—the resurrection of Jesus means that our life is in and with his life now, invisible to all except to those with the eyes of faith.  Nothing can steal that from us.  It is a “buried treasure” of sorts—life with him, Jesus sharing life with us, day in and day out.  He is risen and is with us!  Where will this lead?

“You too will appear with him in glory.”  Our future life, the life of resurrection, is no mere survival or continuation of life as it is, just “more of the same.”  No, we are promised glory— as St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.”  The First Letter of John describes this glory: “We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.”  And, even more dramatically, the First Letter of Peter declares:  we shall share in “the divine nature.” 

With encouragement from St. Paul, we want to ask for this Easter grace:  Jesus, give me the grace, stir my heart, to know and feel more profoundly that you are with me and I with you today, tomorrow and eternally!