Easter Morning Homily 04/09/2023

Homily Preview: This Easter Sunday, like every Easter Sunday, we will be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. Our focus will be on the way in which the early church understood Jesus's resurrection. His followers, who will found the church of which we are a part two millennia later, had expected to relate to Jesus as a martyr and ponder all of what that might mean for continuing his work. Instead, they are confronted with a resurrected human being who will continue his ministry through them. They had categories for thinking of Jesus as a martyr. They had no categories for thinking of Jesus as the resurrected Son of God. But through God's empowering presence they learn that Jesus's resurrection from the dead is the beginning of a new chapter in God's relationship to the world. The new chapter summons the church to show the world a new way to be human.