My name is Don and I’ve been a Catholic priest now for over 50 years, and during that time I keep going back to the same readings over and over again, only to discover that they contain something I never understood was there before. It gives me new enthusiasm and excitement for the message that keeps revealing itself, and I pray that the message that I’m sending you will be valuable. And if you find it so, please share these podcasts with your friends. Thank you. Good morning. Today we celebrate the feast of Easter, the resurrection of the Lord.

The readings are taken from the Mass of Easter Day, the opening prayer O God, who on this day through your only begotten Son, have conquered death and unlocked for us the path to eternity. Grant, we pray, that we who keep the solemnity of the Lord’s resurrection, may, through the renewal brought by your spirit, rise up in the light of life through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A reading from the Acts of the apostles, 10th chapter, 34th verse, and the 37th through the 43rd verse. Peter proceeded to speak and said, you know 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. We’re 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. 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. We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.

To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name, the word of the Lord. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Let the house of Israel say, his mercy endures forever. This is the day the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad. The right hand of the Lord is struck with power. The right hand of the Lord is exalted. I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad.

The Stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone by the Lord. Has this been done. It is wonderful in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad. A reading from St Paul’s letter to the Colossians 34 brothers and sisters, if then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, think of what is above, not of what is on earth.

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. The Word of the Lord. Alleluia verse Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us then feast with joy in the Lord. The Gospel for this Easter Sunday is taken from St.

John, 20th chapter, first through the ninth verse. On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciples whom Jesus loved and told them they have taken the Lord from the tomb and we do not know where they put him. So Peter and the other disciples went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciples ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first. He bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.

When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there and the cloths that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths, but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first. And he saw and he believed, for they did not yet understand the Scripture, that he had to rise from the dead. The Gospel of the Lord Sam SA I remember when I was growing up as a young boy in. In the Catholic community of. Well, I was in many cities.

Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati. And anyway, I I remember so vividly that the feast that I knew was the most important feast in the whole tradition of being a Catholic was Christmas, because it was so festive and so wonderful and there was Christmas trees and there were presents and it was just like, you know, I got so excited when Christmas was coming and it was all about. Though I didn’t really think about it that much. To me it was about presents and, and the tree and all that. But it really was about the birth of Christ, the coming into the world of this figure, the Messiah.

So it was about somebody else’s birth that we were celebrating and Now I look at the way I see Easter, and obviously Easter is the greatest of all the Christian feasts. And it’s not about the birth of Jesus, but it’s about your birth and my birth. Rebirth into a world of clarity, in a world of beauty, in a world of understanding and insight. And this mysterious thing called the insight into who we are and who God is and why we’re here in the world is so clearly depicted in this feast, and it’s so rich and powerful, that my challenge this morning is to try to capture what was at the heart of this whole thing that Jesus has revealed to us in this moment of his death. It’s so crucial to understand it. And the beauty of the weeks of Lent is that we have had these beautiful gospels.

And when you realize that they were used in the early church to awaken people to the most powerful gift that God has given to us through this figure, Christ. And that’s a new life, the light of life. And at the heart of it is an issue about sin. And I love the way the first reading ends when you’re listening to the Acts of the apostles, and that’s the actions of the disciples after they realized who Jesus was and what he was teaching. And it’s all summarized at the end of that reading. You just listen to by saying, what he’s done for us is he’s given us this most incredible gift, the forgiveness of our sins, the forgiveness of sin.

That is the heart of the message of God. And the gift of the feast of Easter is that this wisdom of how to deal with our weaknesses and sins is explosive. If you understand it, it changes everything. So let’s look at the first of those five gospels. And it’s about the definition of sin is missing the mark. And so we see Jesus as a human being setting the mark for his life.

And he realizes that there are many marks you can choose. One is self. Why not make self the most important thing in your life? Take these stones and turn them into something comforting, like bread, because I’m starving. And he said, no, I’m not going to make that the goal of my life, a comfortable life. And then he’s tempted with the.

With the way the world works and its power over people. And he says, no, I’m not going to use the gifts that God has given me to be a person who gets as much out of the world as I can for whatever reasons I need it. I’m not going to be involved in power over people now. So what is it that he’s then Revealing that is his, his target, his mark. It’s interesting. It’s not so much an idea as a person.

He said, the mark that I have is to listen to the word of God that is there for me, that lives inside of me, that’s all around me. And when he speaks, that is what I want to be the core of my life. I want to listen to that voice and I want to follow it. So he says, it’s truth, the truth that comes from my Father. And then, of course, the devil or whatever evil that is, he basically says, okay, well, then just at least test it. And then you get this wonderful response from Jesus.

No, no, this isn’t something you test to see if it’s real. No, you believe in this voice. It’s the voice of God. It’s the voice inside of you that tells you what’s right and wrong. It’s a beautiful, beautiful invitation into an inner world. And then the next reading shows what Jesus is going to say that is necessary.

Or maybe it’s the result of this commitment to an inner voice of God inside of you. And that’s transfiguration is the event. And what it is, is you’re looking at Jesus revealing himself as one who’s received this gift of God’s voice inside of him. It’s become such a part of him. By the time that the transfiguration happened, because that happened late in his ministry, he had already announced to his disciples that he was going to die. And so they had to be supported, I guess, in some ways.

So he takes them and shows them something about what it means to listen to this inner voice. And he said, it’s enlightenment, Enlightenment. And that’s the goal of God’s relationship with you. And in the Old Testament, it seemed that obedience was the goal. But here Jesus is revealing. No, look, it’s not obedience to a law outside of yourself.

It’s opening yourself to a voice inside of you that awakens you to the truth of who you are. And so you see this image of Jesus just radiating this light, this insight. And then Moses and Elijah there, and that’s the law and the prophets. It’s like Jesus saying, look, there was a time when you had to follow a law, and the prophets were there to hold you to that. But I want you to let go of that. Instead of obedience to a law, I want you to listen to a voice inside of you.

Amazing. The transfiguration is a shift from outer obedience of your will, surrendering to another authority and going inside. And the beautiful Thing about that is Jesus saying, the law is written on your hearts. It’s no longer out there somewhere, it’s inside of you. And then there’s the woman at the well. This beautiful story of.

You see this image of forgiveness flowing out of Jesus. He is forgiveness. He is light for those caught in the darkness of sin. And as we know, the temple at the time had nothing to do with sinners, nothing to do with them. You couldn’t get near them without becoming contaminated. Everything that happened to them in life that was negative was a punishment for their sins.

And so into that comes this figure, Jesus. And he manifests this new way of understanding sin and God’s relationship to sin by breaking first the law. I love that Jesus always broke the law. And it wasn’t the law that was in his heart and the law that God wrote there. It was about religious rules and regulations that kept people separated. And even in the way you look at the way religion looked at sin at the time of Jesus, it was always sin created separation, isolation, isolation.

Sin separated you from God, separated you from the community. Leprosy was a great image of it. If you were sinful, you were outcast. And so here comes Jesus into this environment of sinners, goes to a Samaritan woman considered to be a sinner, a woman that he was forbidden by the law to get near or to talk to rather. And so there he is, breaking rules and regulations, entering into a relationship with a woman who had no rights to anything from the, from, from, from Judaism at the time and says, you know, how are you? And they start talking and then she starts revealing things to him about her life.

And, and, and there’s nothing in the reaction of Jesus to the rules that she’s broken. All the things that she’s done that are wrong, that she shares, there’s nothing in him but understanding and compassion. And, you know, the reaction of her is so beautiful because she goes, oh my God, I gotta go tell people about this person I met. I mean, they’re from the temple and yet they’re doing something that I’ve never seen from anybody connected to the temple. And, and he’s giving me this sense of my value that has nothing to do with what I’ve done. And so it’s like something inside of her is awakened.

And Jesus said, it will come. It’s going to be like a, it’s like a well that quenches thirst and cleanses you. The water just keeps coming out of you. Instead of your performance being the source of your well being with God, no. You have already inside of you something that God is delighted in. And he wants to affirm what he’s delighted in that’s hidden inside of you.

And your sins tend to cover it over or tend to mask it. And you’re acting in a way that’s not truly who you are. What an incredible invitation on the part of the world of the temple and sin and condemnation to imagine something so radically different, so radically new. And so you have the woman at the well story, and then comes the blind man’s story. And what’s so fascinating about this is you see in this woman such a receptivity to this idea of forgiveness of sins. Now you go to the blind man and what’s it all about?

The resistance of religion, the resistance of an unhealthy religion that focuses so much on judgment, sin. It’s almost like it reveals this story of the blind man, reveals first of all the resistance of the people in the temple to go beyond their narrow view of the way in which they’ve created a world for people that’s all focused on sin, meaning that the Temple’s role was to name sin, set the rules, set the laws, everything that you were told to do. You have to remember that there was a time, well, it was all about the Torah. And so the Torah was the book that the prophets had to hold people to. And in the Torah there is a book called Deuteronomy. And in it there are 613 rules and laws that govern your daily life.

And so if you broke any of those, you were a sinner. And that sin separated you from God. And the temple was the place where you went in order to get back to God. And so we have an institution that creates a system that you’re bound to fail in. I think if you look at that 613 laws, and then it controls your well being by saying if you must come to us and pay for a ritual that will put you back in touch with the divinity and the love of God. And when you think about that, think of the power that gives this institution.

And it’s not. This is not an image of religion. It’s an image of basic toxic religion. There’s a beautiful, healthy religion that’s out there. It’s a putting on an understanding or yoking. Actually, the word religion means to yoke, to put on something, to carry, you know, to be guided by something or carry something.

And the thing that’s beautiful about healthy religion is it gives you a core teaching. Like these five readings are such a core teaching. As to who God is and what he is inviting us into and how he invites us to live with him and how he’s there to forgive and to draw us into light. That’s healthy religion. When that community you might join that’s religious is giving you the truth, there’s nothing more valuable. And then to be with people that can celebrate that truth together in rituals and song and in actions, it’s really amazing.

It’s really healthy. But when an institution resists forgiveness and somehow breeds a fear of sin to the point that it and only it can release you from that, be careful, because that’s not the intention of God to create a religion that instills guilt and shame and fear. And so all of these four images of the first readings come down to the. The big question, what do the people who listen to Jesus believe? The temple resisted Jesus. That’s pretty obvious why.

But even his friends didn’t fully grasp what he was talking about. And that line of the Martha and Mary, if you’d have been here, everything would have been all right. If you’d have been here, my brother would never have died. You know, it’s like Jesus weeps at that moment. And his weeping is not because that Lazarus is dead, because he knows he’s going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He even says to his disciples, lazarus is really dead, but he died so I can show you something.

And what is he trying to show them? Somehow in your relationship with God, when he enters into your life to guide you and bring you into the light, it doesn’t mean that he’s not going to allow negative things to happen. He’s not going to allow even sin to come into your life where it pulls you down. He is not going to fix everything. He’s going to let everything be as it is. And then somehow, when you surrender to it and know that it isn’t going to kill you, Lazarus wasn’t going to die because of his death, if that makes sense.

No, nothing can destroy you. Lazarus lives. Even though everything turned out not the way that people wanted it to. For Lazarus, I mean, that’s like. It’s like this forgiveness that God wants us to understand is that not only does he forgive us for all the things that we haven’t done, but we have to forgive him for everything that he hasn’t done in our minds. Why didn’t you take care of this?

Jesus? Forgiveness is not just about God forgiving us. It’s about us forgiving God and then even forgiving ourselves. But it’s all about forgiveness. And once you understand forgiveness and live it fully and make it the aim of your focus of your life, you have discovered the light of life. Because light is the thing that doesn’t ever is never extinguished by darkness, no matter how negative things are or how bad they are.

When you have this core belief that somehow in everything there is the possibility of new life, then you found peace and you found the thing that is the most effective focus of your life. A God who loves as God truly loves us. The Closing Prayer Father, your gift is your presence. And your presence is so much more than just you living within us. But your presence is an awakening of the best that’s in all of us, the part of us that you’ve destined for fullness and service for others, to bless us with conviction that this gift that you’ve given us, your presence will lead us into the fullness of life. Let us never doubt it, no matter how dark or how far we drift, knowing we’re always called back to you.

And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. The music in this program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner. I’m excited for the opportunity to awaken your spiritual journey. If you enjoy this program, please subscribe and share it with a friend. This ministry also needs your support, so make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website. Thank you so much for your listenership and your continued support.

Without it, this program would not be possible.