Christianity is a way of life that essentially involves following the way of Jesus, the way of love, compassion, and forgiveness. The test of our discipleship is in the living of these gospel values. And it is in celebrating the Easter mystery that we are reminded time and time again exactly what we are asked to do.

So what is the message of Easter and how do we live it in our daily lives?

Life

“Extra, extra! Jesus is risen!” Some years ago at a funeral liturgy for a priest in New Jersey, the homilist told how the deceased priest had startled his congregation one Easter Sunday by delivering a five-word homily: “Extra, extra! Jesus is risen!” After shouting these words like a boy hawking papers on a street corner, the priest sat down and let the words hang in the air.

The message of Easter is simple and clear: the crucified Jesus had risen and was on the move. It is a message that death does not have the final word, that death has lost its sting, that we are all bound for glory. What tremendous news this is in our contemporary culture that both fears and denies death. The Easter message states that life is stronger than death.

Death is a great mystery. From all appearances, it has the signature of finality written all over it. No one has returned from the far-distant country to assure us that all will be well. No one except Jesus, who as risen Lord continues these visitations among us. The risen Lord comes in sacraments and Scripture, in community, in individuals, and in the events of history. Our task is to discern and respond to the Lord’s movements in our heart.

The Carmelite poet Jessica Powers deals with this mystery of death as follows:

My uncle had one sober comment for
all deaths. Well, he (or she)
has, he would say, solved the great mystery.
I tried as a child to pierce the dark unknown,
straining to reach the keyhole of that door,
massive and grave, through which one slips alone.

A little girl is mostly prophecy.
And here, as there before,
when fact arrests me at that solemn door,
I reach and find the keyhole still too high,
though now I can surmise that it will be
light (and not darkness) that will meet the eye.

(“The Great Mystery,” Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Regina Siegfried, ASC, and Robert F. Morneau, editors [Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1999]. Reprinted with permission.)

How do we live this Easter message of life? We do this by doing what Jesus did. Our risen Lord gave life to others by providing meaning, love, forgiveness, and spiritual guidance. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus helped the despairing disciples understand the Scriptures; talking with Saint Peter by the seashore, he explained the meaning of love; and when he returned to the Father, Christ bade the disciples go forth and proclaim the good news of love and forgiveness.

As disciples of the Lord, we live the Easter message of life by helping people understand the meaning of life; by feeding and tending those who are in need as Peter was commanded to do; and by being evangelists, sharing by witness and word the good news of salvation. When, at the Easter Vigil, we renew our baptismal promises, we commit ourselves to bring God’s life to others, a life so freely given to us.

Redemption

“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” The Exultet, sung at the Easter Vigil, is a hymn recounting God’s redemptive work in Jesus. This song contains the Easter message that sin, like death, has been conquered. What the celebration of Easter does is to reassure us that the two things over which we have no power—sin and death—are not invincible powers. Jesus, through the paschal mystery, has broken the bonds of sin and dispelled the darkness of death.

Sin is deadly because it attacks relationships, weakening and, at times, destroying them. We experience sin in a variety of ways: pride, anger, lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, and envy, just to name the capital sins. Beneath all is a turning in upon oneself, what Saint Augustine called curvatus in se. This narcissism, this preoccupation with self, distorts all reality and throws us into a state of lostness.

It was into this situation that the incarnate Jesus came to redeem us, to seek us out who were lost. No wonder the Church can cry “O happy fault,” since by God’s divine providence, this strange fault led to the sending of the Savior. Even to go further, sin is seen as necessary. However the theologian may explain this facet of redemption, we know that the Easter message is loud and clear: our risen Lord and Redeemer has conquered sin.

How can we live this Easter message of redemption? Evelyn Underhill, an excellent spiritual writer of the last century, consistently stresses the need to embrace redemptive suffering for others. Just as Jesus plunged into the messiness of history with all its stupidity, violence, and blind self-interest, so the followers of Jesus are to reach out to bear the weight of sin and the sufferings of those around us. Jesus was wounded for our transgressions, and we must be willing to be wounded for others.

We do this by reaching out to those who hurt us, to those who suffer from violence and abuse, to those who are lonely, frightened, and despairing. Redemption says to the other, “You count!” You are important and loved by God. Our tone of voice, our glance, and our words must transmit to others the compassion and love of Christ. When we do these things, Easter is “reborn” once again, and people come to know that the happy fault of sin, through God’s grace, can lead to peace.

Beauty and joy

“God of all compassion, Father of all goodness, to heal the wounds our sins and selfishness bring upon us, you bid us turn to fasting, prayer, and sharing with our brothers. We acknowledge our sinfulness, our guilt is ever before us: when our weakness causes discouragement, let your compassion fill us with hope and lead us through a Lent of repentance to the beauty of Easter joy. Grant this through Christ our Lord” (Opening prayer, Third Sunday of Lent; from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 1973 International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved).

Joy and beauty are spiritual qualities of supreme importance. And it is at Easter, in a special way, that we have the possibility of experiencing joyful beauty. The above Lenten prayer tells us how to prepare for Easter joy: praying, fasting, and sharing. If during the liturgical season of repentance we do what the Lord commands, then come Easter, our hearts and minds will be well disposed to recognize and respond to the risen Lord. At bottom, joy is experiential knowledge that we are loved.

At bottom, anyone or anything that is loved takes on the quality of beauty. Thus the Easter message wherein life conquers death and grace trumps sin is nothing other than God’s love becoming present and manifest once again. Pope Benedict XVI drives home the centrality of love in his first encyclical, God Is Love (Deus Caritas Est). God is love, and we are to emulate this God in whose image and likeness we are made. Imitation of Christ can be “seen” by two characteristics: beauty and joy.

How do we live the Easter message of beauty and joy? Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910–1997) had the philosophy that we are here on earth to do “something beautiful for God.” She lived the Easter message roaming the streets of Calcutta, assisting the poorest of the poor. She gave them shelter, medical care, love, and most of all compassion as so many of them died in her arms. Though many would not consider Mother Teresa to have had physical beauty, few would deny that she was beautiful in God’s eyes. She was an Easter person and allowed others to see the beauty of God in her eyes and actions.

Easter joy was at the heart of Saint Francis of Assisi’s spirituality. This troubadour of God could not keep from singing because of his experience of Christ Jesus. So deep was their relationship that Francis eventually bore the marks of Jesus on his own body. Francis lived the Easter message by going where Jesus went: to the lonely, the afflicted, the discouraged, and the lost. His rule of life was to become an instrument of God’s peace to others, an instrument of joy. One of the best ways to live the Easter message is to pray and incarnate the prayer of Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

In the Gospel of John we read about how Jesus, when he appeared to the frightened and discouraged disciples following his resurrection, offered them peace and gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit. He did not say, as one retreat director asked us, “Where were you on Friday?”

The Easter message we are given to live is the message of peace. When Joseph Cardinal Bernadin was dealing with cancer and preparing for death, he wrote The Gift of Peace. He was an Easter person who believed in the risen Lord and the call to holiness. But he not only wrote about peace; he practiced that grace as he reached out to other cancer patients with compassion and love.

All of us are to live the Easter message by being instruments of God’s peace and workers for the kingdom of God. Pope John XXIII tells us that peace has four satellites: truth, charity, freedom, and justice. Thus we prove ourselves to be Easter people to the extent that we are agents of truth (not the lie), of charity (not indifference or hatred), of freedom (not slavery), and of justice (not injustice). We are Easter people by being kingdom builders.