SPEAKER_00: I want to start this morning with a question.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to answer it out loud, but I want you to answer it honestly in the privacy of your own heart.
SPEAKER_00: What would it actually take for you to believe that a dead man walked out of the grave, out of his own grave?
SPEAKER_00: Not admire it, not call it a beautiful tradition.
SPEAKER_00: What would it actually take for you to believe that it happened?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is what Easter claims.
SPEAKER_00: Not that Jesus lives in our memory, not that he's teaching was inspiring a nice man and an itinerant preacher going about doing nice things, but that he was dead and that he wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: And everything depends on whether that is true or not.
SPEAKER_00: Because Easter doesn't work unless it interrupts.
SPEAKER_00: Unless it interrupts something.
SPEAKER_00: It interrupts your routine.
SPEAKER_00: It interrupts the quiet story that you've been telling yourself about your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's not accidental.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: The Gospel of Easter doesn't begin with a sermon, it begins with a problem.
SPEAKER_00: The tomb is empty, and nobody saw that coming.
SPEAKER_00: The Muemin were coming to the burial site with spices.
SPEAKER_00: They were coming to anoint the body to finish what they couldn't because the Sabbath had rushed everything.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples were hiding behind closed doors.
SPEAKER_00: No one was waiting for a resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: They thought it was a complete failure.
SPEAKER_00: They thought it was over.
SPEAKER_00: And then they arrive at the place and see that the stone is moved.
SPEAKER_00: They look inside and the tomb is empty.
SPEAKER_00: The first reaction isn't belief.
SPEAKER_00: It's confusion.
SPEAKER_00: Then fear.
SPEAKER_00: Because an empty tomb by itself doesn't prove anything.
SPEAKER_00: The empty tomb is not the answer.
SPEAKER_00: The empty tomb is the question.
SPEAKER_00: What explains it?
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what we know.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus was arrested, they all ran.
SPEAKER_00: All of them.
SPEAKER_00: The Gospel of Mark tells us that one ran so fast that he left his cloak behind and fled naked into the night.
SPEAKER_00: That's how they fell apart completely.
SPEAKER_00: Peter denied even knowing him.
SPEAKER_00: These were not brave men, these were broken men.
SPEAKER_00: And then something happened.
SPEAKER_00: Those same men walked out into the streets of Jerusalem and started crying out loud.
SPEAKER_00: He is alive.
SPEAKER_00: We have seen him.
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't stop telling people about this.
SPEAKER_00: Not when they were threatened, not when they were beaten, not when it cost them everything.
SPEAKER_00: And almost every single one of them died for that.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that.
SPEAKER_00: People die for what they believe is true.
SPEAKER_00: But they do not die for something that they know was a made-up story.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's going to go to their death for something that was made up.
SPEAKER_00: They were there.
SPEAKER_00: They engaged with him.
SPEAKER_00: They met with him.
SPEAKER_00: They ate with him in different places, in different locations, in different times.
SPEAKER_00: That's not mythology.
SPEAKER_00: That's testimony.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is not a metaphor, some nice story.
SPEAKER_00: This is, we're talking facts here.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and he is risen indeed, then that changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: Then your past is not final.
SPEAKER_00: Your worst mistakes and failings are not final.
SPEAKER_00: Your deepest regrets.
SPEAKER_00: If Christ is risen from the dead, your life is not random.
SPEAKER_00: You are known.
SPEAKER_00: And if Christ is risen, and he is risen indeed, then right now that matters.
SPEAKER_00: Because the same power that raised him up is available to you right now, in the middle of whatever feels finished.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to speak to you where you actually are.
SPEAKER_00: I want to speak to all the parents and grandparents, holding everything together, wondering if it all matters.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm telling you it does.
SPEAKER_00: More than you know.
SPEAKER_00: Stick with it.
SPEAKER_00: To all of our young people and young adults, and I'm so impressed from all of the truum to all of the ceremonies, even from the last couple of years, the amount of young people that are coming back to the faith is incredible.
SPEAKER_00: And I say to you, don't settle for a small life.
SPEAKER_00: You were created for so much more.
SPEAKER_00: To those who are carrying grief this Easter, don't erase your pain.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to know that Easter says to you, death does not have the last word.
SPEAKER_00: And to those who are doubting their faith, you're not the first.
SPEAKER_00: The first people to witness the empty tomb were people who were there with lack of faith, who were experiencing a total and complete loss.
SPEAKER_00: And that matters.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't walk alone.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're doubting your faith, stay in the question.
SPEAKER_00: And to those who have drifted, I invite you to come back.
SPEAKER_00: Not out of guilt, but out of truth.
SPEAKER_00: And today something else is happening.
SPEAKER_00: I want to acknowledge again to those who are being received into the church today, those who are receiving confirmation.
SPEAKER_00: Today is not just Easter.
SPEAKER_00: Today is your beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Today you're fully initiated into the Catholic Church.
SPEAKER_00: Not just as visitors, not just as observers, but as a family.
SPEAKER_00: You've searched, you've wrestled, you've said yes, and today the church says, Welcome home, Catholic.
SPEAKER_00: And your yes today is a reminder to all of us that faith is worth it, that the journey is exciting, that if the faith we sometimes forget we have, we can reclaim it.
SPEAKER_00: I've staked my entire life on this, everything, on the one claim that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, and I would do it all over again.
SPEAKER_00: Because if he didn't rise from the dead, then none of this matters.
SPEAKER_00: But he did.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing matters more.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the call, simple and complete.
SPEAKER_00: Come back next Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Come back every Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Get engaged.
SPEAKER_00: Make your faith your number one priority.
SPEAKER_00: Have a deep relationship with the Lord because that's it.
SPEAKER_00: That's all that matters.
SPEAKER_00: Come to Mass every Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Well, because faith doesn't grow in one moment.
SPEAKER_00: It grows in showing up again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: So I asked you at the beginning of Mass, or at the beginning of this homily, what would it take for you to believe that a dead man walked out of his own tomb?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my answer.
SPEAKER_00: An empty tomb no one has explained away.
SPEAKER_00: Witnesses who gave their lives for what they saw.
SPEAKER_00: And two thousand years of people broken, searching, real people who have encountered something that they could not deny.
SPEAKER_00: The tomb is empty, the witnesses are real, and the invitation is standing right there in front of you, not from me, but from him.
SPEAKER_00: So step into the light, step into the life, because Easter is not something we celebrate once a year, it is a life we enter.
SPEAKER_00: Because if Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, he is truly risen, then that demands of you a responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember nothing else, remember this the best chapter of your life is not behind you.
SPEAKER_00: It's waiting on the other side of an empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.