There is nothing that Jesus cannot conquer

Christ is Risen!! Alleluia, Alleluia!! My brothers and sisters, this season of Easter is the most important mystery and celebration of our entire Catholic faith.  The message that God gives to each one of us through His resurrection is this: There is nothing that I cannot conquer. There is nothing that I cannot defeat.  There is nothing that I cannot redeem.  There is no darkness that can triumph over light.  Rather, light always scatters the darkness.  Hope reigns supreme.  Sacrificial love conquers all things.

As true as this is, and as much as we may want to believe it, it is easy to doubt this reality when we look at the world around us and see the incredible suffering that still remains.  Each of us, I am sure, have encountered great suffering in our lives. These experiences that make us question our faith and doubt God’s loving care for us.  We can wonder, “What difference did Easter really make?”  The enemy would like us to believe that it made no difference, that God didn’t really do anything to bring healing to this broken world, and that he still reigns supreme.   But God has a very different story to offer to us.

I would venture to say that the most difficult and painful moments of Jesus’ life are the days of His Passion and death.  As He hangs upon the Cross, scourged, bloody, broken, and dying, it is easy to believe that He is the victim.  On a human level, that image looks like a loss rather than a victory.   However, Jesus was very much in control at every moment.  The only reason He was nailed to that Cross was because He chose to be there. He wanted to be there.  He chose to enter into the deepest darkness so that from there, His light could burst forth.  He chose to go through suffering to bring redemption to the world.  Good Friday was not a “mistake” that He needed to correct.   It was part of the plan the whole time.

It is true that Easter did not remove all suffering, darkness, fear, and doubt from our world.  It is true that people still rebel against God and turn away from His love.  But this does not mean that Easter did nothing.   On the contrary, Jesus did something infinitely more powerful. Easter brings RENEWAL to our lives in a powerful way.  All that Jesus suffered on Good Friday was not pointless and without meaning. It was not something to be glossed over as we focus on the happy reality of Easter.  Rather, it is the very suffering of Good Friday that gives Easter Sunday its real power.   It is a clear message that there is no suffering that is too big to be renewed and redeemed.  On that day, suffering became the very path to the greatest joy we could ever know.

For those of us who continue in this journey of life and are weighed down by all different types of suffering, this message should give us incredible hope.   While the enemy might tempt you to believe that the trials and pains of your life are without meaning, that God doesn’t really care, that you are isolated and alone, Jesus desires to speak a very different message to us.  He reminds us that we are not alone in our suffering, our pains are not without meaning, and everything can be renewed by the power of His resurrection.  What was once darkness can be turned into the brightest light of our lives.  I see this very clearly in the person of Peter.  I imagine that the greatest pain of His life was denying his Lord not once but three times.  The shame he must have felt from that sin probably felt like a wound that would never be healed.  But Jesus could not let that be.  He brought renewal to Peter’s wound, which allowed Peter to experience a mercy he never thought possible.  That experience enabled Peter, in his preaching as the first pope, to speak most powerfully about the mercy of Jesus.  He knew from experience that nothing was too big or bad to be renewed and redeemed. This gives us Hope in our own experiences of failure.

This Easter, God wants to do the same thing in each one of our hearts, both yours and mine.  And my prayer for all of us is that we would experience the power of that renewal in our lives.  Whatever feels too big or too dark – that is precisely the thing that Jesus died and rose to renew.  May God bless you and your families with Easter joy and hope as we celebrate His resurrection together and continue our journey through this Jubilee Year of Hope.

Happy Easter.