THIS is the challenge of Easter.
Christ’s resurrection has
reopened the gates of heaven and has given us a way to enter it. With
his rising from the dead, we are given a new life. We are now a new
creation, a new man because the eternal curse of sin and death was
undone with Christ’s passion and death.
But it’s up to us to receive this ineffably tremendous
divine offer or reject it. And if we receive it, to develop and care
for it, because even if God has given us everything to be what he
wants us to be, we always have to correspond to that offer with our
freedom, whose proper language is love.
That’s why we have to understand that Easter challenges us
to correspond to the new life Christ has given us. Are we ready for
it? Are we willing to accept it and to assume the responsibilities
inherently attached to it?
In this regard, St. Paul gave us a relevant piece of
advice: “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you
are unleavened. For Christ our pasch is sacrificed.” (1 Cor 5,7)
These words certainly have reference to the Jewish feast
of the Passover when the Israelites were delivered from bondage. It
was a practice that involved purging of the old leaven they had and
offering a spotless lamb as sacrifice.
This Passover feast has become a precursor of Easter when
we are supposed to cleanse ourselves from our old man to receive the
new life offered to us by the risen Christ, the new paschal sacrifice
that is most pleasing and acceptable to God.
Easter or the resurrection of Christ, the fruit of the
cross, replaces and perfects the old sacrifice. It has the power to
forgive us of our sins, and not just to cleanse us externally which
was what the old sacrifice could only achieve. The spotless lamb is
replaced by Christ, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world.”
We can take Easter as the occasion to be more aware of the
need to purge ourselves of the old leaven. We have to be aware that
through the year, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we acquire
many kinds of the old and undesirable leaven.
We have the leaven of the world, for one, that may be
represented by the new technologies and other new worldly things that
can be very exciting, but can only feed, if we are not careful, our
self-indulgence and self-centeredness, instead of enhancing what is
proper to us—our love for God and love for neighbour.
This leaven can so mesmerize our intelligence or our
feelings and emotions and our entire bodily organism that it can
become an addiction, desensitizing us to our need to be with God and
with others always. Nowadays, many people especially the young are
hooked on drugs, sex, games, etc. Withdrawal from them has become
almost impossible.
Our other worldly concerns and affairs, like our business
and politics, can also produce such old leaven that can give us
certain perks and advantages and convenience, but just the same can
only swell our ego. This is actually a very formidable foe because
this kind of mindset is the mainstream at present.
Of course, we have the usual leaven of the flesh that can
lead us to a variety of anomalies like pride, vanity, greed, envy,
lust, sloth, etc. But what is important to realize is that our process
of dying to ourselves, which is what purging the old leaven would
mean, should simultaneously correspond to our need to rise with
Christ, imitating him, identifying ourselves with him in all things.
We can only purge ourselves of the old leaven to the
extent that we leaven ourselves with Christ, increasingly knowing,
loving and serving him, that would always redound to knowing, loving
and serving others, i.e., everyone else.
We need to spread this good news around because many are
still ignorant of it, or if not completely ignorant, are still at sea
as to how we can purge ourselves of the old leaven and leaven
ourselves with Christ.
Actually the leaven of Christ is presented to us as the
unleavened bread of life, i.e., purged of worldly and bodily leaven.
And as Christ himself said, to get this leaven of his, which is
unleavened of worldly things, we need to deny ourselves and carry the
cross.
We need to love the cross to be able to have the new life
offered to us by Christ.
reopened the gates of heaven and has given us a way to enter it. With
his rising from the dead, we are given a new life. We are now a new
creation, a new man because the eternal curse of sin and death was
undone with Christ’s passion and death.
But it’s up to us to receive this ineffably tremendous
divine offer or reject it. And if we receive it, to develop and care
for it, because even if God has given us everything to be what he
wants us to be, we always have to correspond to that offer with our
freedom, whose proper language is love.
That’s why we have to understand that Easter challenges us
to correspond to the new life Christ has given us. Are we ready for
it? Are we willing to accept it and to assume the responsibilities
inherently attached to it?
In this regard, St. Paul gave us a relevant piece of
advice: “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you
are unleavened. For Christ our pasch is sacrificed.” (1 Cor 5,7)
These words certainly have reference to the Jewish feast
of the Passover when the Israelites were delivered from bondage. It
was a practice that involved purging of the old leaven they had and
offering a spotless lamb as sacrifice.
This Passover feast has become a precursor of Easter when
we are supposed to cleanse ourselves from our old man to receive the
new life offered to us by the risen Christ, the new paschal sacrifice
that is most pleasing and acceptable to God.
Easter or the resurrection of Christ, the fruit of the
cross, replaces and perfects the old sacrifice. It has the power to
forgive us of our sins, and not just to cleanse us externally which
was what the old sacrifice could only achieve. The spotless lamb is
replaced by Christ, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world.”
We can take Easter as the occasion to be more aware of the
need to purge ourselves of the old leaven. We have to be aware that
through the year, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we acquire
many kinds of the old and undesirable leaven.
We have the leaven of the world, for one, that may be
represented by the new technologies and other new worldly things that
can be very exciting, but can only feed, if we are not careful, our
self-indulgence and self-centeredness, instead of enhancing what is
proper to us—our love for God and love for neighbour.
This leaven can so mesmerize our intelligence or our
feelings and emotions and our entire bodily organism that it can
become an addiction, desensitizing us to our need to be with God and
with others always. Nowadays, many people especially the young are
hooked on drugs, sex, games, etc. Withdrawal from them has become
almost impossible.
Our other worldly concerns and affairs, like our business
and politics, can also produce such old leaven that can give us
certain perks and advantages and convenience, but just the same can
only swell our ego. This is actually a very formidable foe because
this kind of mindset is the mainstream at present.
Of course, we have the usual leaven of the flesh that can
lead us to a variety of anomalies like pride, vanity, greed, envy,
lust, sloth, etc. But what is important to realize is that our process
of dying to ourselves, which is what purging the old leaven would
mean, should simultaneously correspond to our need to rise with
Christ, imitating him, identifying ourselves with him in all things.
We can only purge ourselves of the old leaven to the
extent that we leaven ourselves with Christ, increasingly knowing,
loving and serving him, that would always redound to knowing, loving
and serving others, i.e., everyone else.
We need to spread this good news around because many are
still ignorant of it, or if not completely ignorant, are still at sea
as to how we can purge ourselves of the old leaven and leaven
ourselves with Christ.
Actually the leaven of Christ is presented to us as the
unleavened bread of life, i.e., purged of worldly and bodily leaven.
And as Christ himself said, to get this leaven of his, which is
unleavened of worldly things, we need to deny ourselves and carry the
cross.
We need to love the cross to be able to have the new life
offered to us by Christ.
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