The Participation in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ

 Reflection on Today’s Readings, Easter Sunday, April 17th, 2022
Texts: Acts 10:34a.37-43; Psalm 118: 1-2.15c- 17.22-23; Col. 3:1-4/1 Cor. 5:6b-8; John 20:1-9
We rejoice today because our Lord Jesus Christ has won for us resurrection; his resurrection is our resurrection. If He died for us, He also resurrected for us. We are Christians because we participate in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, St. Paul says, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” Resurrection manifests in our life in two stages: it manifests here and now and it will manifests in its fullness at the end of time. The participation in the resurrection here and now is a guarantee for participation in it at the end of time.  
We participate in resurrection here and now when we die to sin and live to righteousness. In the words of St. Paul: “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:9-11). For forty days we have trained ourselves through penance to exercise dominion over sins by subjecting the passions of the body under control. Let us listen to St. Paul in this matter: “Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:12-14).
We have also practised charity intensely for forty day so as to participate in the resurrection of our Lord. By the practice of charity, many of our sins are cancelled, for St. Peter says, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins” (1Pet. 4:8). By our active love in these past forty days, we now rise with Christ. St. Paul says, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). By our sins we were dead but by the cancellation of the sins, we rise with Christ.
We also participate in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ sacramentally through baptism. I say ‘congratulations’ to the newly baptised for their participation in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. They died with Christ and rose with Him. Baptism is a profound way of participating in the Lord’s resurrection because not only sins are forgiven by baptism, the punishment due to the sins are remitted. We attain by baptism full redemption. This brings to mind the words of the psalm: “O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption” (130: 7-8). Concerning baptism and resurrection, St. Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6: 3-4). Note this: You are now walking in new life; continue to live the life of Holiness, be undefiled and blameless in words and deeds. Now we have died and resurrected with Christ whether through baptism or our participation in Lenten devotions and observances. By our participation in the resurrection we are now living new life, we are not to go back to our former ways of  life.   

O God, who on this day, through your Only Begotten Son, have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity, grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit, rise up in the light of life. Amen (Collect)

 
Fr. Andrew Olowomuke