For the Salvation of Souls:
A Preacher's Contribution

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We are in many ways creatures that live in and out of the future; we are thus creatures who are sustained by hope. Ever think how often we look forward to things:
      a long desired and much needed vacation, perhaps;
      or a reunion with a sibling or friend we haven't seen for years;
      a long anticipated promotion
      a graduation
      or just a good night's sleep at the end of a very long day.
It is also true, I think, that the more we look forward to things, the more we savor them when they finally occur. Yes, surprises are nice, but it's real nice when that day we expected finally comes, and we can revel in that which we have looked forward to for so long.

We are in many ways creatures that live in and out of the future; we are creatures who are sustained by hope. And that hope gives vitality, movement, and joy to our lives.

How important hope is to us can be seen when we look into the eyes of a person who has given up, of one who simply has nothing to look forward to, one who is without hope. Is there anything sadder than the LACK of vitality, movement, joy that we see there?

Easter is the greatest feast of the Christian year precisely because it is the feast of the future, the feast of our hope. But it is not an easy hope, as it was not for the first Christians: they knew that the cross their Lord was crucified on was not finished in walnut or mahogany, was not symmetrical and smooth, but was a crooked, spiny olive tree whose splinters bore into his flesh; they knew his death was neither peaceful nor triumphant, but was encompassed with the stench of death and decay, surrounded by Roman torturers and scavenging vultures; they knew that their Lord and friend died slowly by asphyxiation in nakedness, in the most humiliating way the Romans or anyone else had ever or would ever devise.

But God gives us the power to look back with hope-against-hope on this horrific event because of the future that the Father gave the crucified Lord by raising him up in glory, and thus also the power to look forward to our own future when we hope to share that same resurrection. This looking backand looking forward sustains all the many other things we hope for in our lives, and gives meaning to our lives when we can expect no more good things from this world.
But Easter also bids us look to the present in two important ways:

The source of the hope that both Christ had and we had for resurrection is grounded in the Father's presence to Him in his life on earth, and his presence to us. Because the Father loved the Son and would not be parted from him in death, he raised him up. So too for us: it is God's presence to us here and now that sustains our hope in his love and his will to glorify us. Scripture scholars tell us that the reason the ancient Jews gradually came to believe in an afterlife in the century before Christ was simply
because of their lively sense of God's presence to them in this life: they could not imagined being parted from him, and thus unable to worship him and find joy in that worship.

The future that we hope for also serves as a criticism to all of our presents: because we know what's in store for us and our world--a kingdom of peace and joy--we cannot rest content with our world that is broken in so many ways, and are moved to bring our worlds a bit closer to the reality of the future. Years ago when I was a young priest at St. Dominic's in SF, I quoted a line from a contemporary protestant theologian on hope that made the pastor, Father Cavalli, scratch his head and wonder what planet I came off of; but it's a good line: THE GOAD OF THE PROMISED FUTURE STABS INEXORABLY INTO THE FLESH OF EVERY UNFULFILLED PRESENT. We are goaded to bring our present worlds a bit closer to the reality of the hoped-for future.

This Easter let us rejoice in our past--Christ's resurrection--and our own future resurrection, but also let us recommit ourselves to the present, doing what we can to anticipate the resurrected kingdom of peace in our hearts and the world around us. Let us not only speak words of peace to each other, as we will do several times during this Mass, but let us, by our words and actions, begin to make the peace a concrete reality in our relations with each other and, as we are able, in the larger communities of which we are a part. Let us hope in our future, but in the Lord's power to transform our presents as well.

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