By Msgr. Willibald Steiner, Ecclisiatical Assistant of Unum Omnes
At first sight, the message of Easter doesn’t seem to be very paschal. There is nothing about Easter songs, Easter Hallelujah or an idyllic Easter promenade into the resurgent spring. Mary of Magdala is on her way to the grave, as we on the way to the cemetery. For her, it isn’t Easter, it’s Black Friday. The Lord is dead; the promising story with him is over. And she is dismayed to recognize: the stone of the grave was removed. It seems that somebody has stolen Jesus’ body. It couldn’t get worse.
However, where we come to the zero-point of our existence, where we are at our abilities’ end, just there, God begins. Every Easter we are appalled that the scale of human expectations is turned upside down by what has happened here to Christ.
Easter truly is a challenge to accept this improbable experience. It’s not only about some mystic, a special elation while singing Easter songs, and Easter eggs. All this – as pious as it may seem – can still lie on the way to the grave. So, do we search for the Lord among the dead or among the living? How much of our faith and religious practice is just about caring for dead figures? We can’t celebrate Easter without posing these questions and facing them. Therefore, celebrating Easter is a real challenge and really demanding. However, in the time of the Apostles it was like this, too. They can’t believe Mary’s message yet. Dead is dead! Anything but this is unthinkable. Not until the Resurrected appears to them, they find to faith. Who should or could believe offhand that this crucified Jesus, who was an offense for the powerful and a hope for the poor, ill and oppressed, is alive? That was unexpected even for the disciples. However, the day of Easter then was the birth of their faith. Mary of Magdala was open-minded for the encounter with the Resurrected and recognized in this changed one her Lord and Master. She is an example for our Easter faith, too.
Many people – even many of our Christians – have their problems with the faith in the Resurrected or can’t believe in the resurrection at all. If we manage to come out of the graves of mere habituality and acquittal, then I’m sure that our faith lives on the hope for change, that we will be transformed like the Resurrected. With him, we aren’t on the way to the grave, but on the way to life. Then the great joy of Easter will shine in our faces and in our hearts and will give hope and joy also to our sisters and brothers around us in our home countries.
Christ is Risen! This festive joy of Easter I wish to all of you in the whole world!