During the service of light in the Easter ceremony, the priest says, ‘may this new fire enflame us with hope’.
What is our hope? to walk from now on “in newness of life” and to live with Christ forever in heaven. Lent prepared us for receiving newness of life. The first reading on the last Sunday of Lent read, ‘I will make things new, I will make a path in the wilderness’. There is always a price to be paid for rising to new life. To the woman in adultery, who is offered new life, Jesus says ‘Go and sin no more’. Jesus himself had to die to rise to new life. We don’t expect to die immediately after Easter, but our new life in Christ, puts an extra obligation on us. Romans 6:2-7 asks the question. How can we, who have died to sin, go on living in it? We have to look to the apostles, who rose to new life and became new men after the resurrection. They could not have done this by themselves, ‘the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’. It was the power of the Holy Spirit that transformed them.
Before the Holy Spirit came to them, they were fearful and cowardly. After Pentecost, they were fearless and prophetic. We have the same power at our disposal, but we have to claim Jesus’ power, and believe that we have it. We need spiritual heart surgery (a change of heart). Going into the desert, Jesus was ‘led by the Spirit’ even He rose to new life after the resurrection – He looked different (they did not recognized him) he could pass through closed doors, walk on water and gave his disciples a new mission to go to the gentiles. During his ministry, he had told the Samaritans he was only sent to the Israelite ‘to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. We don’t have to wait for our death, to rise to new life. Faith in the risen Lord is not just about the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, but the conviction that he lives now, can be met now, ‘reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by’. When we really accept that, eternal life begins here and now. Many forces around us block us from making a deep private act of faith and rising to new life, and these forces are often members of our own house hold. They live with us and are as comfortable as well-worn shoes. They are also in us, in the forms of greed, envy, ambition, life style, sport, T.V. sitcoms and laziness. To rise to a new life, we need to put our trust in a new Lord. Everything else fails. To accept Jesus as Lord, is to become a different person before a new God. To choose Jesus, is to be freed from other powers, to be freed to live a new life. The apostles’ knew that Jesus had risen by finding an empty tomb. We to have to empty ourselves, become detached from worldly things, in order to fill ourselves with God, and rise to a new life. In Philippians 3:17 and 4:1 St. Paul says, ‘our homeland is in heaven and from heaven comes the Savior we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ and He will transfigure these bodies of ours into copies of His glorious body. He will do that by the same power with which He can subdue the whole universe’. To rise to new life in this world, we need the power of the Holy Spirit. His power is obtained through faith in God and faith is got through prayers for the gift of faith, even when we are not sure that God exists. In the gospels, a father who wanted his boy cured was challenged by Jesus who said ‘everything is possible for one who has faith’; to which the man replied, ‘I have faith, help my lack of faith’. With such an attitude before God, he cannot refuse to help us to rise to new life.
Sr. Una Rutledge