Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Sunday, April 08, 2007 8:18:27 AM
Easter Sunday 2007 -- Today all of us who are Christians, even those who attend only on festival days, will crowd into our churches and places of worship to celebrate our Risen Lord. Today I'd like to remind you that Christ often reveals Himself in the guise of a stranger.
Remember that Mary Magdalene stood distraught in front of the Tomb, alarmed that the body of her Lord was not there, and when she saw someone standing in the Garden she assumed he must be the gardener and spoke to him without even taking a good look first? It was only when He was able to interrupt her flow of queries and alarums by speaking her name that she realized it was not a stranger, but her Risen Lord.
An old hymn reminds us that Christ often comes to us just this way, in the guise of a stranger. So today when you enter your church, take a minute to look at the people around you. Notice in particular the strangers. And don't "notice" them the way you usually do. Don't simply speak them to say "Excuse me, would you mind getting out of Our Pew so we can sit as a Family?" or even worse, simply elbow them aside and shove your way into the Joyful Procession ahead of them. If the person who is sitting next to you in the pew is not known to you, don't turn to your husband, wife, child or grandma and present the stranger only the back of your good Republican cloth coat; and when required by the Mass to greet the stranger with "peace be unto you" don't do it as if the stranger has cooties.
That may be your one chance to greet the Risen Christ Who is sitting or standing or entering that Church beside you -- and because you greet Him with an elbow in the side, the back of your hand, or by ever so politely asking Him to vacate Your Pew, He may leave your Church and your life and shake the dust from His feet.
You don't know if that person sitting beside you is simply somebody your Mother and Grandmother never met at the Yacht Club, or a person far from home on a holy day who has come to this Church to praise God in the company of all believers -- or if that stranger is in fact the Risen Christ. Can you afford to take that chance?
Do you really want to stand before the Heavenly Bar and hear the Lord Jesus say, "I visited your Church and you elbowed Me aside; I sat beside you in the pew and you ignored me; I offered you My peace and you refused to look at me or touch My hand; in fact, I attended that church for six months and when I departed and shook the dust from My sandals, you never even knew I had been there before."
And when you protest, "Lord, when did I ever treat you in such a shameful way?" you already know what He will say. "Inasmuch as you did it to anybody who attended your church, you did it unto Me."
Of course, those of us who visit and attend your big city church, however small that church may be, would really prefer that you speak to us as brothers and sisters, not elbow us aside to get at the cookies, never ask us to vacate Your Pew, and miss us when we shake the dust of your parish from our feet, every Sunday of the year.
But we're willing to start small. As Christ started small in the Garden when He gently opened the eyes of Mary Magdalene to the fact that He was not the Gardener, perhaps today when you see a stranger among us you'll smile and speak and say "Aleluia! Christ is Risen!" as if you spoke in fact to the Risen Lord.
Because that, in fact, may be exactly who it is.
Have a blessed Easter and may you rejoice exceedingly now and forevermore in the glory of the Risen Christ.