Those of us of a certain age will recall, with fondness and a touch of nostalgia, the 1977 made-for-television special series, Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth. It premiered on network television for several nights in a row during the last week of Lent in 1977. I recall, as a-then ten year old, going over to watch the last installment of this series, the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, his Passion, Death and Resurrection, with my Aunt, Uncle and Grandmother who lived next door to our family’s farm. My siblings and I stayed overnight at my Aunt’s house that night.
The next morning, we arose and made our way back to the farm to do our morning chores through the field that separated their house from our farm. Although it was nearly fifty years ago, I recall the walk through that field as though it had happened just this morning. It was one of those early spring mornings — it was cool, but the morning sunlight was dazzling, streaming down, striking and illuminating everything with a brilliance and radiance that warmed us and seemed to be waking up the earth, as though from a deep sleep. I recall looking and seeing hints of greenness in the grass that was beginning to stretch itself up, rising up from the earth as new life. I recall seeing and hearing the morning birds, gathering in flocks, flitting about, chirping and carrying on in song, heralding the dawn, the return of spring, the rebirth of new life. And I recall the smell: the smell of the spring earth, softened and watered by the melting snows and spring rains; warmed by the morning sun, it was coming to life again after the sleep of winter, and giving off the scent of new life, resurrected life. You know that smell — it is the scent of Resurrection.
I recall how I felt then, and feel now, as I experienced this. A certain lightness of heart; a certain right-ness within the created world; a sense of joy. Though we walked through a well-familiar landscape, it was as though I saw it in a different way, seeing things for the first time and in a new way, with vibrance, as though with new eyes, hearing things with new ears, smelling things with new nostrils…
This is the experience of God that we are called into through Christ. This is the experience of the fruit of Christ’s Sacrifice and Resurrection, fruit born from the tree of the Cross, that has become for us the Tree of Life. New life.
New Life which allows us to:
…see with new eyes,
…hear with new ears,
…smell with new nostrils,
…taste with a new tongue,
…speak with a new mouth,
…touch with new hands,
…feel with a new heart — a heart not of stone, but of flesh. (Ez 36:26)
Three days ago, on Holy Thursday, we commemorated the Lord’s celebration of the Passover Meal at the Last Supper. We recalled how in our inheritance with Christ, we too are a Passover people — a Passover people who commemorate not some ancient event, but an ongoing one in Christ Jesus. St. John Chrysostom instructs us that, with the true Body and Blood of Christ the True Unblemished Lamb on our lips, our lips which are the doors to the temple of Christ dwelling in us, how much more so will the spirit of evil will pass over us than it did the doors of the ancient Israelites sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed year-old male lamb or goat. Every time we celebrate this Paschal Mystery in the Eucharist, the doors of our hearts are painted anew for the Passover. And so we are a Passover people.
And we are also an Easter people, for we are a new creation in Christ. It is not just that we have been passed over by the angel of sin and death, but that we have been created anew. Last night at the Great Easter Vigil, we prayed the great prayer of the Church, the Exsultet. It further elaborates a litany of the fruits of Christ’s sanctifying Sacrifice and Resurrection, that the sanctifying power of this event — an event that continues, rippling through all of time —
…dispels wickedness,
…washes faults away,
…restores innocence to the fallen
and joy to mourners,
…drives out hatred,
…fosters concord,
…and brings down the mighty.
In these ways, through the sanctifying power of Christ we are created anew by Him who says “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). It is Christ who dispels our wickedness, washes our faults away, restores our innocence, and brings us joy.
An Easter joy, that is for us each time we are renewed, reconciled in Christ, the dawn of morning resplendent, dazzling with the light of Christ, warming us, waking us from the sleep of sin, and raising us up like tender blades of new green grass, rising with that sun, Resurrected, on our Easter morning.