Sermon for Monday in Easter Week
“They shall look upon him whom they have pierced”
Zechariah’s text carried us through the intensity of our meditations upon the Passion of Christ in Holy Week. His word is literally the last word of The Passion According to St. John read on Good Friday. But as we saw on Easter Day, his text also carries us into the understanding of the mystery of the Resurrection. We look upon him whom we have pierced and learn above all else the love of God for our wounded and broken humanity restored to love and by love in Christ Crucified.
To learn the Resurrection is to be pierced as well. It means to have our hearts and minds moved by what we see and hear. It means to contemplate the mystery of the Passion and the Resurrection for they are inseparable. No Passion, no Resurrection; and paradoxically, no Resurrection, no Passion. We can only make sense of the Resurrection through the Passion of Christ. This is what the Gospels show us both in Holy Week and in the pageant of the Resurrection which is before us in the Octave and through Eastertide. We are meant to be pierced into love and understanding by what is given to be seen and felt in the accounts of the Resurrection. Those accounts show us the ways in which the idea of the Resurrection comes to be known and believed.
On Easter Monday we have the Peter’s address about the Resurrection from Acts and the powerful Gospel story from St. Luke about the Road to Emmaus. Peter’s testimony bears witness to the bodily reality of the events of the Resurrection. Jesus “whom they slew, and hanged on a tree: him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.” The word after is most telling. Christian witness is always about the Resurrection and that in turn is unthinkable without the Passion and the deeper meaning of the forgiveness of sins with which Peter ends his sermon in Acts. The Resurrection is proclaimed as made known to chosen witnesses “who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.” A pretty powerful statement and one which is rendered even more powerful by Luke’s Road to Emmaus story. In both, the idea of looking upon him whom we have pierced is a critical part of the learning.
