But that joy was yesterday's joy. This is now, a time for new rejoicing. God reminds us - I Am. I Am the God of Today. I was with you Yesterday. I go ahead to prepare Tomorrow for you. When we were all grief-stricken because of Peter's brain cancer and death, who could have foretold this future? Merritt brought Tom to meet us when they were engaged and Tom asked her to invite us to the wedding. We were gladdened that everyone at the wedding was so hospitable to us, including Tom's parents. As broken as Merritt, the boys, and our family were at the time of Peter's death, God was already preparing to mend us all, and will continue mending each of us in our own time and our own way.
When tragedy strikes in our lives, it's only natural that we do what the apostles did after Good Friday - cower in fear behind locked doors. In twenty-four hours, they had suddenly, catastrophically, seen the Rabbi they so loved taken from them and murdered like a criminal. Would they be next? We too say to ourselves "What horrible thing will happen next? How can joy ever touch and lift my heart again?"
Somehow the apostles had forgotten, as we do, that this Jesus had healed so many, even raised people from the dead: the son of the widow of Nain; the daughter of Jairus; Jesus' good friend Lazarus. Did it not occur to them - or us - that God had a special plan for Jesus? After all, didn't they - and don't we - remember that the angel told Jesus' mother Mary "Nothing will be impossible for God"?
The greatest message of the Resurrection of Jesus is that God will also raise us up from the dead - not only at the end of our lives, but all during our lives. Our crosses lead to our own, highly personal, resurrections. Fr. James Martin, S.J., in "Jesus A Pilgrimage," says
"Often we find ourselves incapable of believing that God might have new life in store for us. 'Nothing can change,' we say. 'There is no hope.' This is when we end up mired in despair, which can sometimes be a reflection of pride. That is, we think that we know better than God. It is a way of saying, 'God does not have the power to change this situation.' What a dark and dangerous path is despair, far darker than death.
"How many of us believe that parts of our lives are dead? How many believe that parts of our family, our country, our world, our church, cannot come to life? How many of us feel bereft of the hope of change? This is when I turn to the Resurrection."
We are not called to live in locked rooms. We are called to open the doors of our souls to a waiting, resurrected Jesus! If you remember, Jesus appeared to his apostles and disciples in different ways in order to bring them new life and new hope that life is triumphant. Jesus is patient with our grief: Mary of Magdala, crying in the garden, heard the sound of his well-known voice, calling her name. Jesus is patient with our doubts: Thomas, missing when Jesus first appeared to his friends, said that he would not believe unless he saw Jesus' physical wounds - and Jesus showed them to him. Jesus gives each of us what we need so we will know him and know the power of his resurrection in our lives.
Sometimes, I think, we're not observant enough. We don't recognize our personal resurrections, even when they are simply changes in our attitudes. Fr. Martin tells the story of a woman he knew in a hospital for the seriously ill who used a wheelchair. One time, in a discussion group, she said something surprising. He recounts
"She used to think of her chair as a cross, which would have been my reaction. But, lately, she had started to see it as her resurrection. 'My wheelchair helps me get around,' she said. 'Without it, I wouldn't be able to do anything. Life would be so dull without it.'"
God is incapable of leaving His creation broken. He sent Jesus to us when we were broken by sin. He raised Jesus' broken body from the dead to show that Death no longer has the final power. He wants us all to learn from our sins and wounds and then be healed and rise to new life. If we only look, carefully, prayerfully, attentively, we will always see a jubilant, resurrected Jesus waiting to be active in our lives. And then we too are the disciples who "rejoiced when they saw the Lord."