Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday 2021 Title: Bring Him Home
[__01__] “Follow me.” This is the command of Jesus to Mary Magdalene and to the disciples throughout their lives. And, now they have followed him all the way to the “cemetery” and tomb and their outlook after the death of Jesus.
Mary
Magdalene and the disciples represent you and me – and are similar to you and
me – in their visit to the cemetery.
It is part of our faith / hope –
after the death of beloved person – we are sustained not just by the
recollection of history but also by the reality of presence – believing the
person lives. For example, that my
brother or father, my sister or or mother, my wife or husband, my child
or grandchild – still lives and has a home with God.
Why does Mary Magdalene go to the
cemetery – to the tomb – not to leave Jesus behind, to leave Jesus there, but
even before his Resurrection, she wants to bring him home.
Knowing he is risen, she can do so even more.
[__02__] BRING HIM HOME.
This is also the
theme of a Hollywood movie – The Martian
- starring Matt Damon in which Matt Damon plays a “Mark Watney”, NASA Astronaut Mark Watney [A_M_W] ]abandoned on the surface
of the planet Mars.
The theme is “BRING HIM (Mark Watney)
HOME” because the crew escapes but leaves [A_M_W] behind after an accident.
They just could not rescue everyone.
And I’d like to reflect on his 3
challenges – and our own journey from “dying” to “living” in terms of:
[●
1st COMMANDS, that are to be followed ●
2nd CALORIES, that are to be found ●
3rd COMPANIONSHIP, that
is to be formed
]
[__07__] 1st. COMMANDS / Follow.
At
first, [A_M_W]
is just glad he did not die in the accident and storm on Mars. But his ability
to follow commands is severely tested, challenged. First, he’s injured, all shaken up. Now that
he is all alone, he is faced with having to make the most of his situation – as he has been trained and commanded to do – but also to do so with absolutely no one
at his side, no supervision.
Literally, he is following “commands”
in a vacuum, in the vacuum of outer space.
Sometimes, when we are in an ordeal –
difficulty – it is difficult to do what is right. We may want to give up,
become indifferent. We may feel we are in a vacuum. But, it is often at these very moments that
we need the objective truth of what is right to guide us – because we ourselves
can lose our way in a crisis. How many of us – for example – have experienced
the death of a loved one, and found it difficult to go through with the ritual,
the funeral arrangments…but yet also found strength in the structure of the
command.
In movie, The Martian, [A_M_W] is hanging on by a thread depending on what
commands he can actually carry out.
Our calling as Christians and
Catholics is not only to follow the Commandments but also to recognize they are
not given for our punishment but for our survival.
Also, being together in prayer, at
church – whether virtually or in person – we recognize that that the integrity
of our neighbor helps all of us to live lives of integrity.
Remember the incident Jesus turning
over the tables of the money changers and sales people at the Temple
Jesus was not knocking over tables in
the Temple just to kick out a few pesky peddlars who were turning the Temple
into a [TARGET]
store.
This was not just what “they” – money
changers were doing but we are all being asked to use the commands and Commandments
of God and our worship to re-order our lives and priorities. Have we not all, at times, seen “religion”
or our faith only as one more task to do in the “marketplace”? Our faith is not something we undertake to
change our own “position” or place, but rather to bring God into our lives, to
make him the center… to Bring him home.
[__08__] 2nd. CALORIES/Find.
Back
on Mars… [A_M_W] needs calories. He needs to
find food and he needs food that is hearty and sort of “not so perishable”. The
challenge is how does he get the calories.
He comes up with a plan to grow
potatoes on Mars. I like potatoes, this
was heartwarming!
On
the one hand, [A_M_W]
has many bottles of vitamin supplements, but he cannot just survive on the
vitamins. He needs some solid food. He needs calories as energy.
God’s word and God’s grace are meant
to be our energy. Jesus says we are nourished by his Body and Blood and that we
do not live by bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of God.
For [A_M_W], he must also find make
the calories last…and to recognize that he is not going to get nourished once
and for all or all at once. It’s a marathon and not a sprint as he is on Mars
for 18 months.
Our spiritual journey also invites us
to take the long view and to recognize that God will continue to feed and
nourish us for as long as we live. There is still more for us to receive and be
nourished by. We all have a long way to go, not just from Mars back to Earth,
but from Earth to heaven.
Coming
to believe that Jesus loved us so much that he would die for us, we gain our
true strength and place in the world and that he is out true food. Bring him home.
[_09_]
3rd. COMPANIONSHIP / Form.
Back on Mars … [A_M_W]
is – physically abandoned and alone – but he makes a decision early on that he
is going to try and communicate w/ Houston / NASA. Is it even possible?
His regular radio had been destroyed
by the accident/storm. It seems hopeless. But he also knows that out on the
Martian landscape - in a place that he can reach in a few hours by his “space
SUV / Rover” vehicle, there is an old
radio from a previous astronaut mission that he can fix and repair. And he does find it and gets it working like
MacGyver on Mars. (Anybody remember the TV
show MacGyver?)
And, this makes all the difference,
just knowing he is not alone, that he can talk to his colleagues and
supervisors and hugely important in his survival, to his journey home, even
though they are millions of miles away. He can talk to someone.
[__10__] You and I are in a covenant relationship
with God based not only on the Commandments but also on Jesus Christ as the
Good Shepherd who is still out looking for us.
Jesus
gives us the Commandments not only to tell us where we went right or wrong but
also to be our guide for the future. In the tradition of Lent/Easter the
commandments are what we can pray about.
That’s PRAYER…
Jesus
gives us his Word as our spiritual calories and nourishment so that we can be
re-energized, nourished. Yes, at times we are “fasting” … we are waiting, but
these intermittent fasts and we know that he will sustain us.
Jesus
gives us companionship in his life and in the next and asks us to be companions
and helpers to each other. This is our almsgiving.
We read and celebrate [EASTER] … to remember he is still with us. And, not only to follow him, but also to bring Him home. [_fin_]
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