‘Christ is the answer.’ What’s the question?
IN the vigil service of Holy Saturday tonight, Christians await the Lord as he comes forth from the tomb. The paschal candle symbolizes the Risen Christ dispelling the darkness of sin and death.
* * * This is dramatically enacted as the church, with all the lights switched off, is enveloped in darkness. Only the paschal candle is lighted signifying that the Risen Christ is the light of the world.
Holy Saturday ushers in the greatest of all feasts of the Church – Easter.
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There’s a story about a young man who visited a seminary. On the walls of the corridors and bulletin boards were various posters which read: “Christ is the answer.”
Wondering what it all meant, the puzzled visitor scribbled the following below one of those ubiquitous posters: “What is the question?”
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If “Christ is the answer,” what is the question is he answering?
Easter answers the question: After suffering, what? It also answers such fundamental questions like: What’s the meaning of life? Is life meant to be nothing but a vain struggle for a modicum of joy and satisfaction terminated by death? In the words of St. Paul, are we here in this world to “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”?
* * * Jesus, by his resurrection, is showing us that life is not a meaningless puzzle. His resurrection is that big piece in life’s jigsaw puzzle that makes the whole picture make sense.
Moreover, Christ’s rising from death is the Father’s seal of approval on his life and work. As St. Paul puts it, “If Christ has not risen, in vain is our preaching and your believing in it” (Read 1 Cor 15,13).
* * * Easter is not just a remembrance or re-enactment of something that happened more than 2000 years ago but is something PRESENT.
The death of Christ, for example, should teach and induce us to die to our old self. Thus, the man who struggles to give up smoking, gambling, and bad traits exemplifies Christ’s rising to a new life.
* * * Moreover in the family, there is the challenge to rise to a new life. For an estranged couple, for instance, it can mean rising from the depth of their problem and starting all over again.
“You mean, I should forget everything – all the cheating, the womanizing my husband has done in the past, making a fool of me?” an aggrieved wife might say.
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Yes. If the offending spouse is sincerely sorry and wants to start anew, then Christian forgiveness is demanded, in the very spirit that Christ forgave his enemies on the cross.
Like Christ, all of us have our own Calvary, our passion and death. But like the Redeemer, we too will know and feel the beauty, the joy of the Resurrection, if we but live it in the spirit of Christ.
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THE LIGHTER SIDE. Did you know that the people to whom the Risen Lord first appeared were women? (Read Mt 28,1; John 20,1).
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Jesus knew women and their innate ability to spread news fast. As somebody said, “If you want your message to travel fast, send by telephone, if you want it faster, send by cell phone; if you want it fastest, TELE-woman!”
(That’s just a joke because some men spread gossips much faster than women).
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