Easter Sunday Liturgy

Our bodily eyes are blind. All they do is register reflected photons and give our brain cells electrical impulses for it to digest. The eyes and the brain give us images. They give us impressions. They’re very good at what they do, but they can’t tell us what any of these images mean. They don’t speak to us. They leave us free to interpret these things any-which-way we want. Yet, in spite of all this, we trust our eyes.

It’s much harder to trust our inner vision. May people dismiss what we “see” with our hearts entirely. After all, our hearts have lied to us, haven’t they? They’ve made promises that we haven’t seen fulfilled. They’ve been broken by falsehood and deceit. Isn’t it easier and less painful not to awaken the heart, but just to let it sleep in undisturbed oblivion?

And yet, to all of us comes a time when our bodily eyes, too, lead us astray. We find ourselves lost and unable to find our way. Our bodily eyes give us infinite choices, but what to choose? Which way to go? Having too many choices leaves us as confused as having no choices at all. In those times, the only guidance we have comes from the heart. It sees beneath the surface. It searches for right and good.

Imagine yourself a shepherd on a cold, dark night in the fields outside the town of Bethlehem. You hear rumors of a child born nearby in a cave shelter. You’re curious. You leave your flock and hurry over, following your comrades, to see for yourself. You arrive, you go in and, sure enough, there’s a newborn baby boy – a baby no different from scores of other baby boys you’ve seen. What’s the fuss? Why the excitement? You look around. These are all working people just like you. You get it. They’re excited to see a newborn. You shrug your shoulders and maybe smile and nod at the young parents, then you step outside to chat with your friends. It’s all nothing out of the ordinary, so you go back to work. “Nothing to see here. Move along.”

Or maybe you see a couple of men and some women hurrying by you on the road. They’re heading in the direction of that spot where they held a public execution a couple of days ago. You’re curious, so you follow them at a distance. They come to a garden and a small open tomb. They look around. They’re highly agitated and talking excitedly with one another in hoarse whispers. You can’t make out what they’re saying. After a few minutes of this, they turn and leave. You want to see what’s going on, so you go up to the little cave hewn out of the rock and you look in. There are some cloths lying around. That’s it. The place is empty. You shrug your shoulders and shake your head. Much ado about nothing. You leave the way you came. “Nothing to see here. Move along.”

Yet the heart has its reasons that reason knows not of. Some can look on the face of a newborn child and see the face of God. Some can look into an empty tomb and see their risen Lord. Some can look at a happy coincidence and see the miraculous. Some can look on mere bread and wine and see the Son of God. Some can even face death and see eternal life. But some others would look at these people as delusional – as people consumed by wishful thinking.

On this easter morning as we peer with the disciples into the empty tomb of our disappointed hopes and lost dreams, are we looking with our bodily eyes, or with our hearts?

Christos voskres! The Lord is truly risen, Alleluia!