New Life

Gospel
12 April 2009
Easter Sunday The Resurrection of the Lord
Jn 20:1-9

On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.

***

By Lester Yee

Today is my 21st birthday and am now of legal age. I’m going to graduate school and at the same time working part-time. In a sense, I am beginning a new phase of my life, my slow initiation into the “real world”. Being a fresh honor graduate from Ateneo, I am fortunate enough to find work. However, the temptation exists to be happy in the worldly sense, to amass wealth and thus, to be able to enjoy luxurious living in the face of the poverty of millions of other brothers and sisters. The world endorses this by promoting a culture of dog-eat-dog, also known as “progressive” and “competitive”.

In succumbing to this culture, I lay one stone on top of another in the tomb of my heart, burying away the real Jesus there and keeping false images of the Risen Christ in my head. I can worship this false Christ by going to Church regularly without acting on my faith and without fighting for social justice. In every act of selfishness, in every act without love, I pile pebble upon pebble, dust upon dust, stone upon stone over Jesus’ tomb, drowning the voice that calls us to die to ourselves and live a life for others.

Thus, to allow new life to flow through me, I must turn away from the world and choose God. If I manage to do so, I face a monumental task of healing myself, of removing the tons of anger, resentment, envy, lust and all other stones that block the tomb entrance. The situation seems hopeless and it may appear naive to change course. But I must persevere and at the same time recognize that I cannot heal myself. This is to recognize the power of God to heal me and to roll out (together with me) all the stones blocking the Risen Christ.

Finally, in letting Christ out, I must incarnate Him in this world, letting the new life flow through me, touching the lives of others and empowering them to be like my Risen Lord.

Lester Yee has just turned 21, having just graduated magna cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University last March. He is currently taking up Graduate Studies in the same university and is working part-time for Medicines Transparency Alliance Council. He also is editor of C153 Caught in the Act Section.