Easter Vigil 2025 © LUKE

INTRO:

It is so good to be with all of you tonight.

I am not the greatest computer software kind of guy. Manipulating certain software just baffles me, confuses me. You can ask my staff!

BUT,
There is a different kind of confusion tonight, a holy confusion???

Luke recounts certain details about the events of Easter morning.

Easter morning was a shocking and confusing time for both the Apostles of Jesus and the holy women. “Where is He?” “Who took him?”

There was a great deal of running back and forth to the tomb to verify reports and investigate what had happened.

They did not yet understand what Jesus had tried to predict for them. He told them that he would suffer, be put to death and die and in three days be raised up again, but they did not remember that in that confusing early morning discovery!

How often in life have we responded to something spectacular by saying:

“No way!”

This Easter mystery of a bodily resurrection of Jesus is true and our celebration of it is, primarily, PROPER. That is why you are here tonight.

Sure, we cannot fully or scientifically understand this “bodily” resurrection mystery of our catholic faith, but THAT DOES NOT MATTER! We do NOT have to understand it and our world, other people, should not make us falter in our lack of fully understanding what God has done in the person of Jesus Christ.

We are her to celebrate Jesus and what this mysterious action of his bodily resurrection did for us. As he rose from the dead, He reached the gates of heaven and OPENED THEM. He opened the gates of heaven which God the Father had closed since Adam and Eve’s sin. He brought REDEMPTION! Our greatest gift.

We now can be united with God at the time of our deaths. This was God’s plan for us: to receive the gift of eternal life in heaven with Him, given to us through His son, Jesus Christ!

CONCLUSION:

We can say, “NO WAY!” but now, is that not something to celebrate?

HAPPY EASTER!