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Two-Minute Homily by Archbishop Mark Coleridge for Easter Sunday 2023.
“You and I and indeed the whole world needs a saviour, not just a wise teacher, or a miracle worker, we need a saviour and that’s what we have once Jesus rises from the dead, his scars shining like the sun.”

• Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Author: Archdiocese of Brisbane

  Saint Paul got it just about right when he said that if Christ isn’t risen from the dead then our faith is futile and we Christians are the most pitiful of all people. So everything then depends upon the resurrection. Christianity stands or falls on the claim that Christ who was brutally executed was then raised from the dead. If that’s not true, then Jesus is nothing more than a remarkable miracle worker or a wise teacher or an exceptional moral exemplum whom we have to try and imitate.

  But for us that’s not nearly enough because you and I and indeed the whole world needs a saviour, not just a wise teacher, or a miracle worker or a good example, we need a saviour and that’s what we have once he rises from the dead his scars shining like the sun. If he is risen then Jesus Christ is everywhere. He can be encountered, He can be seen, He can be heard, He can be touched, He can be tasted and that’s really what Christianity is; it’s the encounter with Jesus Christ risen from the dead with all His scars, with the scars shining like the sun.

  The forces of death remain potent and the evidence of that is everywhere. War, disease, famine, all the economic uncertainties of this time. But the forces of death were also potent on the dark mountain of Calvary. But that wasn’t the end of the story; it’s a big part of the story, but it’s not the end of the story. The end doesn’t come until Easter morning when Jesus Christ emerges from the tomb standing in the morning light and says to the disciples, peace be with you, I’ve seen the worst, I’ve gone to the bedrock of darkness and destitution and you have nothing to fear, your fears are in fact a bluff.

  Easter then is the death of death and the death of the fear that death generates. And if that’s true, as we claim it is, then far from being the most pitiful of all people we who have seen the Lord become the most blessed because we have seen him rise from the darkness and become the light that nothing and no one can dispel.