Easter Sunday
Mass of the Day
Getting Unstuck

Readings: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9

Today is the day of Easter joy. Sisters and brothers, this is what we proclaimed in our opening prayer just now. Today is the day of Easter joy. And we all know very well the reason for this joy. In the words of the ancient Easter greeting: Christ the Lord is risen! Indeed he is risen! The One who loved us so much as to give his life for us, the same One whom we have come to love in return, has conquered death. He lives! Surely it is only natural that we should rejoice. Even so, we might perhaps be forgiven for wondering what Christ’s rising has to do with us. Are we to be joyful only on his behalf, as someone might be expected to rejoice at a friend’s good fortune? Or is there not something in it for us as well?

A rather strange image comes to mind as we ponder this question. Fly paper. Remember what that is? It’s quite understandable if we don’t. It’s not used much these days. Fly paper is the sticky paper used to catch flying insects. You hang it up in strips and the flies get stuck to them and you discard them afterward. Simple but effective, if a little unsightly. But imagine, just for a moment, that you were a fly. Imagine what it’d feel like to be stuck to a strip like that. At first, you may struggle as hard as you can to break free. But the harder you struggle the more stuck you become. Finally, you give in to despair. You stop struggling and just wait for the inevitable. Terrible thought. Thankfully, we’re not flies.

And yet, doesn’t this world sometimes feel like one gigantic strip of fly paper? As we go through life, don’t we seem to have a remarkable tendency to get stuck in so many different ways and at so many different levels? I think, for example, of the country I visited recently. Although some say that the economy is improving, as evidenced by the appreciating currency, it’s difficult to deny that the country remains mired in corruption at many levels. In a rural area we visited, for example, we were told that although a concrete road is marked on the map, for the most part, there is really only a dirt track in reality. Only very small portions of the road have actually been paved. The money for the rest has been diverted into someone’s pocket. Fly paper. We find it everywhere.

And we don’t really have to look very far too. Although corruption is probably nowhere near as big a problem here, do we not find ourselves prone to getting stuck in other ways? Another image which comes to mind is that of a mouse in a cage, running furiously on one of those circular wheels. Isn’t this what life looks like for some, if not many, of us? The only difference being that the mouse can stop running when it feels like it, while we remain stuck on that wheel. Fly paper. And the examples of being stuck can easily be multiplied too. We might think, for instance, of various addictions, or the bearing of grudges, or the tendency either to shirk or to take on too much responsibility… We don’t have to look far to find fly paper. It’s everywhere.

This was Jesus’ experience as well. All through his life on earth, Jesus kept encountering fly paper. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us to lead us back to the Father and to one another. Yet, in so many ways, people kept trying to trip him up, to get him stuck. He had to be born in a stable because there was no room at the inn. As an infant, he had to flee to Egypt because king Herod wanted to kill him. After his baptism in the Jordan, he had to resist the attacks of the devil. Then throughout his ministry, he attracted opposition as much as admiration. And it is precisely the climax of this opposition that we have been recalling over these past three days. To the One who came in love to set us free, we offered the final sadistic strip of fly paper: a shameful, cruel, painful death on a cross, and burial behind a huge rock in a stone-cold tomb.

Is it any wonder, then, that the disciples also find themselves stuck after the death of their Master? Consider Mary of Magdala in today’s gospel. She visits the tomb on the first day of the week, because that is probably where she last caught sight of her Lord. But she is really only looking for a body. And when she finds the tomb empty, she immediately thinks of grave robbers. She is unable to recall Jesus’ earlier predictions regarding his rising. Quite understandably, Mary is stuck in the fly paper of her grief.

But here is where we find the crucial turning point of our reflection. This is where we find the joy of Easter. Here too is where we begin to discover what’s in it for us. Despite all the world’s efforts at getting him stuck, Jesus remains free and mobile. He proves himself immune to every kind of sticky paper. Even death turns out to be only a milestone on the path marked out for him. Isn’t this what that empty tomb in the gospel symbolizes? The stone is rolled away, and Jesus goes freely in and out, from death to life.

And this freedom is what Jesus shares with those who believe in him. To all who are stuck, Jesus offers the hope of breaking free. Isn’t this what all the running about in the gospel points to? Mary runs to find Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved. And together the latter run to the tomb. Doesn’t this frantic initial reaction foreshadow what we find in the first reading? In the home of the foreigner Cornelius, Peter speaks boldly and passionately about his Master’s death and resurrection. We are… witnesses, he says. These are the words and actions of one who has become unstuck, and who then eagerly runs to tell others the Good News.

But getting unstuck is a process. As we heard in the second reading, it involves turning our minds and hearts from earthly to heavenly things. This doesn’t mean we should seek to escape from this fly paper world. Rather, we are to immerse ourselves more deeply in it as Jesus did, resisting every tendency of getting stuck in a superficial existence. We are to live the hidden life. For through our baptism we have died, and now our lives are hidden with Christ in God.

We see where and how this process begins to take place in the experience of the disciples. It is when they return to the empty tomb and gaze upon the grave cloths within that something happens to them. They gradually come to see and to accept a crucial truth: that he must rise from the dead. Looking at the empty tomb, they are given eyes of faith and hearts filled with hope. It becomes clear to them that Jesus cannot remain dead, that he must rise. It is an imperative. Two Sundays from now, when we listen to the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we will hear a second imperative that needs to be accepted: it was ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory… Christ had to suffer and he must rise. It is in coming to accept these two imperatives and in seeing their implications for us that we become unstuck, and so begin to experience the joy of the Crucified and Risen One and to share it with others.

This, then, is what’s in it for us. We who often feel stuck like so many flies on sticky paper. Even as we continue to stare at our own particular tombs, might we not ask the Lord to show us that the stone has been rolled away, and that the tomb is empty? Might we not ask for the grace to accept that the One who had to suffer and die also must rise? And after having imitated the disciples and submitted to the process of getting unstuck, as we learn to entrust ourselves to the Crucified and Risen One, won’t we also find ourselves running off to tell others the Good News?

Sisters and brothers, the fly has become unstuck. The Lord is truly risen!

Are we running yet?