The Rest of the Story

Composed by: Sr. Magdala-Aquino
 
A few weeks ago I was out in my yard, eyeballing my plants and pulling a weed here and there.  Next door the neighbor’s two young boys were playing basketball in their driveway.  I heard the younger say to the older, “Guess why I can’t wait until tomorrow?”  No answer from his brother.  So he said again:  “Guess why I’m really excited about tomorrow?”  Still no answer from his brother.  Now I was intrigued and actively eavesdropping; I wanted to hear why he was so excited.  Little brother asked again, but at that moment his sister came out of the house to play, and the moment was lost. 
 
Even though I didn’t get to hear what that little boy was so happily awaiting, I’m pretty sure he was looking forward to something wonderful.  We adults also express our desire for the future, but often our expression is for a future not of something exciting coming, but of some difficult thing ending.  We can’t wait until the work week is over … the doctor’s visit is done … the difficult family member leaves … a worrisome work project is completed … training is finished.  
 
Maybe we need to remember and recapture our joy in what’s coming next.  For sure, adult life is complicated and full of sorrow, but as Christians, we’re called to be joy-filled, even in the midst of our trials and tribulations.  And more than anything, we need to latch onto the most wonderful thing of all, our own resurrection.
 
Bishop Robert Barron in his homily for Easter Sunday talks about how incredibly different and exciting the Resurrection of Jesus was, to a people who had a long history of various ideas about the life hereafter.  Amongst the different views in first century Judaism was one in which the righteous dead would rise at the close of the age.  But what happened to Jesus was different.  He didn’t rise from the dead at some future end of the age; he rose while people were still alive who knew him, and he rose in time, not at the end of it.  Barron says, “It was the very novelty of the event that gave such energy and verve to the first Christian proclamation….  They were trying to tell the whole world that something so new and astounding had happened, that nothing would ever be the same again.”  Jesus rocked their world, to put it simply.
 
But does He rock ours, in this way?  If we’ve been Christians for many years (cradle Catholics come to mind), we’re used to hearing about heaven and the beatific vision that hopefully await us.  We probably feel grateful for this most tremendous and undeserved gift, but do we get excited about it?  How do we capture the wow of it all, the holy-mackerel-can-this-really-be-what-awaits us, of our ultimate destiny? 
 
By remaining faithful.  And open.  And humble.  And by using our brains to periodically do some thinking about what it all means.  If the Lord wishes to inject in us an excited feeling about such things, He will.  And if He doesn’t, we remain in Christian hope.  The hope that is more than earthly hope, because hope on earth really isn’t sure (e.g. I hope I don’t meet an untimely death).  In the hope of our resurrection, there’s a promise behind it, the promise of Jesus, who said, I go to prepare a place for you.   
 
WOW.  So hey, guess why I can’t wait until my “tomorrow”?
 
Peace to you, and may this Easter season fill you with joy and hope!