Easter Sunday B

Easter Sunday 2021 See and believe (Jn 20: 1-10)
Easter is a time to reflect on your faith.

“Hallelujah, let us rejoice; Christ Jesus rises from the dead.” This is how the whole Church sings all over the country today. She is an expression of our joy. However, this joy we are experiencing today is conditioned by our inner and personal conviction of our Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection. In the Gospels, we read: “Then came the second disciple, the first to come to the tomb, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture to rise from the dead ”(Jn 20: 8-9).

When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was rolled away from the tomb, she was terrified. She quickly ran to tell his disciples. They, all frightened, ran to the tomb to see for themselves the truth of the message brought by Mary Magdalene. When they got there, they found him empty and folded in it, wrapped the body of Jesus and the scarf he had on his head. And this is where we meet the first evidence of the resurrection. This evidence is the folded sails that remained in the grave. When John saw them, he wrote of himself: “Then the second disciple also came in, the one who had come to the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture to rise from the dead ”(Jn 20: 8-9). The evangelist does not write, “he saw and was convinced,” but “he saw and believed.” This discovery of the empty tomb was the first step for the disciples to acknowledge the resurrection’s very fact. Although the resurrection is proclaimed in the New Testament as a historical event, it cannot be understood as other historical facts because it is not subject to our world’s laws in its space and time. The empty tomb was a sign that they understood only when they met the living Christ. These external experiences and inner faith are an inseparable conviction that gives meaning to the whole mission and life of the apostles, the witnesses of the Risen One. The faith of today’s man is dependent on the credible word of the first witnesses.
Dear brothers and sisters! See and believe. There are things in the world that we can see with our eyes, touch with our hands, measure, dare, describe. There are others that we can understand with reason, as the principles of mathematics, others to enjoy with emotion, rather than the beauty of nature, art, and another whole world that can only be perceived by faith. Faith in a hidden God is and will remain a faith that seeks, asks, and takes risks again and again. He who truly knows God and believes in Him will change his life – internally and externally. The knowledge of God is the work not only of reason but also of heart, t. j. the whole person. Knowing God means recognizing him as the reason and goal of one’s own life to accept him as the only and absolute good.

The famous Max Jacob lived in a quiet street of Greater Paris. He made a living making a living by painting pictures. He didn’t pray, he didn’t go to church, he didn’t have time to do it, but when working on paintings, he often thought about whether there was a God, whether to believe in God and how to get to believe in God. And God rewarded him with a wonderful experience. Once, when he returned home from the National Library, he noticed a heavenly revelation by the wall on which his picture of the landscape hung. He saw a cloaked figure standing there. He knew from familiar images that he was the figure of the risen Christ. Jesus had a calm and radiant face. The artist fell to his knees in front of him and cried out, “Lord, forgive me!” And then Jesus disappeared from his sight.
This experience shook the young artists so much that he asked the Catholic priest for instruction in the faith and baptism. After his baptism, the artist experienced the most beautiful moments of his life in a deep faith in God. He loved the Lord so much that he longed with all his soul to become a priest so that he could proclaim to people the happiness of deep faith in God for man.

The joy we experience today from our Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection must find concrete application in our daily lives. For otherwise, our joy would be only something superficial. And it is faith that is the basic foundation by which man responds to God’s call, to God’s call. Deep faith and trust in God will help us overcome all our life’s difficulties and crises. Many times it seems to us that we are completely alone in all our life’s problems. But this is not the case! After all, God is always with us and knows what is best for us. To believe means to surrender unconditionally to God and embark on a journey into the unknown with him. By resurrecting His Son, God assured us of His love for us. We already read in the Old Testament with the prophet Isaiah: “Shall a woman forget her infant, and have no mercy on the fruit of her womb? Even if she forgets, I will not forget you ”(Isaiah 49:15). What could be more beautiful evidence than this? It only depends on us how we decide. In His great love, God makes himself known to every human being. He speaks to each of us without distinction. A great openness and receptivity of the heart are needed for us to accept it. Our faith must be a free and responsible act. Therefore, to believe in God means to make a radical decision for him. So this is the basic direction and meaning of our lives.

If we surrender ourselves to the risen Christ by living faith today, he will draw us so strongly to his heart that even death will not snatch us from his embrace, and we will live with him forever in love and joy with the Heavenly Father.

A fire broke out in the house at night. Terrified parents fled the children from the burning house. The mother was horrified to find that their five-year-old son was missing. She thought his father had taken him. What to do? He wants to throw himself into the flames, but the flames were too high. A window on the second floor opens, and the boy screams for help. Father raises the sail, unfurls it with the help of others, and shouts, “Jump; we’ll catch you!” The boy cries, “Dad, I can’t see you!” “But I see you,” your father shouts, “and that’s enough, jump!” And the child jumps and is saved in the father’s arms.

To believe means to jump into the open arms of the Father he saves with courage. Faith often has to take risks. Our faith needs to be alive, unwavering, and full of trust. And although we were not direct witnesses of the resurrection, Jesus encourages us: “Blessed are those who have not seen and believed” (Jn 20:29). He tries to look at the world through the eyes of faith and evaluate it with the heart of faith, in which this feeling gradually develops and grows, so one finds oneself in a completely new world. In a world of God’s goodness and love. He who knows God in his life knows that he owes everything to him. Paul described the existence of faith in the resurrection as follows: “In all things we have affliction, but we do not suffer; we feel lost, but not without a way out; they persecute us, but we are not forsaken; I throw us to the ground, but we don’t die! We still bear the death of Jesus on our bodies so that the life of Jesus may reflect our bodies. We are alive, but we still go to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh ”(2 Cor 8-11). Faith in God brings great joy and satisfaction to every person’s life.

Christ has risen from the grave; he is no longer accessible to our human eyes. But it invites us to enter the world of faith, where it continues to live just as real, just differently. Let’s not look for the living among the dead, with the mind what can only be understood by living faith. Blessed so far have been everyone who discovered it. Our faith is based on the testimony of the apostles. It just depends on our decision. The ultimate proof of the resurrection for each individual is his own knowledge of the risen Christ.