visible rhetoric

How does one know that what you are seeing is a real ghost or not?  First, the feet of a ghost do not touch the ground. According to ancient beliefs ghosts do not leave footprints when they walk.   What other proofs that what one is seeing is a ghost or not?  According to Tertulian you have to check the extremities, check specifically his hands and his feet.  This time you have to touch them – do his hands and feet have bones. Can you feel the bones in them? In ancient beliefs ghosts have no bones. 

In his dialogue with Nicodemus who was a learned Jew and a member of the highest ruling body of the Jews, Jesus told him that to become a son or daughter of God is no longer determined by the flesh or by the lineage of Abraham, or by race. To become a son or daughter of God now depends on the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  To be reborn into becoming a son or daughter of God is dependent on the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives through water, that is through baptism.

Our gospel today narrates that when the resurrected Christ revealed himself to the apostles, Thomas was not in the room.  He was not with his fellow apostles.  We really do not know why and the gospel is silent on his reasons?  Probably he was out on an errand or probably he went out to soothe his pain and loneliness.  Probably the room with all those sorrowful and desperate men were just too depressing, too stressful for Thomas.  The point is he separated himself from companions.  He was alone, he was on his own.  And probably this is the reason why Thomas doubted, why he could not believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. But after a week we see Thomas once again but this time he is with his community and when the risen Lord appeared it was not as hard to believe that indeed Christ is risen and because of that he was the first to utter and acknowledge that indeed Jesus is my Lord and my God. 

Our liturgy tonight is so all encompassing.  Whoever created this ritual tonight made it sure that he misses nothing.  Our theme is from psalm 136 for his love endures forever.  Our gospel however is from Matthew 28 go therefore and make disciples of all nations.  And our ritual recalls the command of Jesus in Matthew 5 to become salt and light for the world.  This is a preacher’s nightmare and at the same time the congregation’s confusion.  Gin-ubos ya gid ang tanan, wala ya gid ginbinlan para sa next year nga graduation.

The resurrected Christ appears in the midst of the apostles as they locked themselves inside a room.  The question is how did Jesus pass through the locked doors?  How did he enter the room where the disciples had locked and hidden themselves? Today we meditate on the qualities of a resurrected body. Remember when we resurrect, we resurrect with the body we died with.  So kon mag-resurrect si Mandario he cannot resurrect with the body of Abalorio.  Indi puede, although I think Rodolph would want a slimmer body, but that would no longer be resurrection but possession.

Our gospel today clearly shows that our eyes can fool us, our eyes can be a prey to illusions. And so is our hearing, even our logic, our thoughts and eventually our conclusions.  Mary Magdalene saw what she thought was a gardener who took away the body of the Lord.  Be wary of what you see, hear, think and conclude.  We are in still in a world where truth can be apparently true, where goodness can be seemingly good, where ugliness can be beautifully wrapped.  

Tonight, we have come to the last day and the peak of the holy triduum.  Triduum means three days.  It is the feast of the paschal mystery and it takes 3 days to finish, from Holy Thursday to Good Friday to Easter Sunday which we begin tonight with this Vigil. It is the pascha, the crossing over of Jesus as much as it is also our crossing over from our old life to a new life. Tonight, the last day of the triduum we are invited to become the young man in our gospel, dressed in white robe whom the women found in the tomb seated at the right side. If you have listened to last Sunday’s gospel at the beginning of the Holy Week, also from the gospel of Mark, there was also a young man in the garden of Gethsemane with Jesus.  He was a follower of Jesus, and Mark described him as wearing only a linen cloth.  When the soldiers arrested Jesus in the garden a commotion ensued and the disciples fled for their lives including this young man....

Yesterday in order to do our pascha, our crossing over from slavery to freedom, from this world to the Father, from our old selves to the new, Jesus invited us to have our feet washed and also to wash each other’s feet.   Today another invitation is given to us, this time it is an invitation to stand beneath the cross, to stand beneath the cross of Jesus with John, the beloved disciple, with the women close to Jesus, and most especially to stand beneath the cross with Mary, his mother. Jesus, if you have not yet noticed already, Jesus never called his mother mama or nanay.  Instead, Jesus calls her “woman”.  There is a reason for this and it is not a belittling of nor a disrespect to Mary his mother.  In fact it is to honor his Mother that Jesus called her woman, for by calling her woman he invested on her the dignity of being the new Eve, the first woman in the book of Genesis.

Pascha means to pass over, to cross over.  We remember in these three days of the holy triduum the crossing over of Jesus. By his suffering, by his death and by his resurrection Jesus is crossing over from this world to the Father.  But even before Jesus, Israel had its own pascha, they have their own crossing over from the land of Egypt to the promised land, from slavery to freedom.  They too have to make a crossing.   But this is also our pascha, this is also our crossing over from slavery to freedom, from this world to the Father, from our old life to a new life. To help us cross I am proposing three invitations, one for each day of the triduum. The first invitation is for feet washing.  The second the invitation on Good Friday is to stand beneath the cross.  And the third on the Vigil of Easter is to become that young man whom the women saw in the tomb sitting on the right side clothed in white. 

Today in the gospel we see how Judas betrayed our Lord for 30 pieces of silver.  When a slave is killed accidentally, the master is compensated with 30 pieces of silver. It is cheap.  In fact 30 pieces of silver is the same price paid to Zechariah who acted as a shepherd and he called it sarcastically a handsome price. It is cheap.  And this is what precisely what the gospel is reminding us of – how cheap can we become when it comes to money.  It shows us what people will do for money.  And it is not only Judas.