Homily:
When I was a young college student studying Physics, there was always one law that kept bothering me: The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy. The law that says everything slows down, wears down and breaks down, ultimately to a bland monotone of energy equality where nothing can or will do anything. Period. And what was worse, it bothered me that it bothered me: Why was I annoyed by a law of Physics? Most of us don’t get up in the morning annoyed with gravity or the speed of light as a constant. I mean, no one is like… “Man, friction… what a drag…” or “Conservation of Energy: creative buzzkill” or “Gravity… what a downer.”
Entropy bothered me because of what it meant. It meant that if the material world is all there is, all our hard work in life would ultimately be eroded after some time as the universe finally dies. The greatest works we have produced as the human race, things like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Great Wall of China, the Mona Lisa… will ultimately be eaten by our Sun when it expands someday, and then waaaay off in the future, our Sun would get snuffed out into nothing at the end of all of the great lights. Entropy doesn’t even leave us a consolation prize: we can’t even say “well, I’m gonna die, but at least the human race will go on better than before.” Nope, Entropy eats that too. No escaping it. Even if we built a Star Trek-esque space ship and sailed to the edge of the universe, entropy would still be there, waiting with a hungry smile to eat our power. Entropy bothered me because it meant that unless there is some help from outside the created universe, our work ultimately has no meaning, our art had no meaning, our lives ultimately had no meaning. It meant toil. Hard work for no ultimate reward except inescapable death and nothingness. In the end, it meant that we’re just kids on a beach and all our works, dreams and actions are like a finely built sandcastle, just waiting for the inevitable, unstoppable tide to wash it out to sea. To put it bluntly: Entropy meant brokenness and death. And I didn’t like that a bit.
I think all of us are bothered by death, suffering and the prospect of a meaningless life. We’re frustrated when we see sin and evil in the world. It makes us angry when our hard work fizzles or worse, is destroyed in malice right before our eyes. And we’re never comfortable working hard for no particular reason. What’s worse is that all our efforts to avoid suffering, death and decay in our world ultimately fail. The toil in our world bugs us. Death bugs us. And they should: Because we aren’t made for Death. We’re made for life. We’re not made for this world and suffering, we’re made for heaven and joy. Easter helps remind us of this.
Through Easter, our faith reminds us of our own story, one of a world that God created good and full of life, unspotted by suffering and unblemished by toil. Ours was a world meant for joy and eternal life. But then disaster struck. We fell. Sin and death entered the world. Weeds grew in the garden, our work became toil, and our joy was marred by suffering. In time, we even forgot God, His plan, and that he’s greater than things like entropy. We became closed in on ourselves and the universe we can see and measure, left in the fearful grip of meaninglessness and death, and we couldn’t save ourselves. In short, we need a savior.
Enter Jesus. God saw us in our fallen state, and our many attempts to save ourselves being swallowed either by natural causes like entropy, or supernatural ones like sin and death. And he didn’t just do nothing and say, “oh well…”. Rather, he breaks in from the outside. Just what we needed: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” In this light, we can imagine the drama of our first reading today as the savior arrives:
Peter proceeded to speak and said: “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
Finally! We’re saved! Here’s someone who can help us, who can restore us to our destiny to eternal life! Look at all the great things he’s done. So what do we do? Next line…
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.”
Wait, what? Really? Death got him, too? Even that plan failed? Imagine the shock and depression that must have plagued the disciples. Here they have God himself become man, who is clearly sent to save them from their sins, suffering, and death. Sent to give them eternal life and meaning… “Everybody on board the lifeboat, we’re getting the heck outta here…” and he up and dies on us? What is that if not the ultimate expression of toil. All that for nothing. It seems like meaninglessness, sin and death won that round, and if they beat God, who’s left to save us? But then the next verse:
“This man God raised on the third day”
Boom. Just when you think you’ve got him pinned, God makes a roaring comeback. It’s a classic Judo move: Christ absorbs the whole force and momentum of the devil’s deadly attack and then uses it to beat him into submission. It’s a TKO. Christ wins the unexpected victory by transforming the enemy’s finishing move into one of his own. Death is struck down and transformed into life.
What does that mean for us? It means that we’re not doomed to a meaningless material death through entropy. It means God has broken in to save us. Christ has given himself even up to death to show us that even in death and suffering, even at our worst in hatred, rejection and murder, he is still there waiting to pull us back from the brink. The God who is love is stronger than death, suffering and toil. “Deep waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it”. On the cross, Christ stands like Moses, arms stretched wide, parting the sea and turning back the tide of death. He keeps it from rushing in and sweeping away our sandcastles of work and meaning into nothingness, calling the Spirit down in a pillar of fire to purify them so they shine as diamond palaces of heaven, and opening the way for us to pass through to heaven through faith. If we give ourselves over to him in Faith, Hope and Love, he will transform our death, suffering and toil into eternal life. And that’s just what our second reading reminds us of today:
“If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.”
Make Christ your hope and your Salvation. Die with him and rise with him to a destiny beyond the grasp of all the stars in the universe. Rejoice and seek what is from above. For today we have been set free by love for love and eternal life in glory. Happy Easter.
Homilies of Father Rich Miserendino 