2018-4-1

朋友们，复活节福音是圣若望精彩记载的耶稣复活经过。

 

耶稣复活这个令人不安的事实引出三个重点教训。第一，这个世界并非我们的归宿。耶稣死而复活最明确地说明天主的计划远远超出我们的想象。在生活中，死亡不再是我们的主宰，而虚无主义不再是唯一合乎逻辑的观点。事实上，我们可以开始明白这个世界是个孕育之地，使我们为更高尚、更恒久、更辉煌的归宿做好准备。

 

第二，所有暴君都知道他们已经到了山穷水尽的地步。记住十字架是罗马帝国用来彰显权威的工具。但当圣神使耶稣复活时，首批基督徒深知凯撒实际上时日无多。有关部门把耶稣的复活解释为主观体验或仅仅是个象征符号，这正合暴君们的心意，因为这样耶稣就没有真正对他们造成威胁。

 

第三，救赎之路已经向所有人开放。耶稣直达最深处，进入痛苦、绝望、疏离、甚至邪恶之中。人们离开天主有多远，祂都一一赶上。为啥？为了找回所有脱离了天主迷失方向的灵魂。鉴于耶稣的复活，首批基督徒终于认识到：即使我们快马加鞭地逃离圣父，最后还是落入圣子的怀抱。

 

让我们不要俗化这些来自耶稣复活的骇人教训，而是允许这些教训吓坏我们、改变我们、使我们炽热起来。

 

Friends, our Easter Gospel contains St. John’s magnificent account of the Resurrection.

 

Three key lessons follow from the disquieting fact of the Resurrection. First, this world is not all there is. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead shows as definitively as possible that God is up to something greater than we had imagined. We don’t have to live as though death were our master and as though nihilism were the only coherent point of view. We can, in fact, begin to see this world as a place of gestation toward something higher, more permanent, more splendid.

 

Second, the tyrants know that their time is up. Remember that the cross was Rome’s way of asserting its authority. But when Jesus was raised from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit, the first Christians knew that Caesar’s days were, in point of fact, numbered. The faculty lounge interpretation of the Resurrection as a subjective event or a mere symbol is exactly what the tyrants of the world want, for it poses no real threat to them.

 

Third, the path of salvation has been opened to everyone. Jesus went all the way down, journeying into pain, despair, alienation, even godforsakenness. He went as far as you can go away from the Father. Why? In order to reach all those who had wandered from God. In light of the Resurrection, the first Christians came to know that, even as we run as fast as we can away from the Father, we are running into the arms of the Son.

 

Let us not domesticate these still-stunning lessons of the Resurrection. Rather, let us allow them to unnerve us, change us, and set us on fire.