It is a curious thing, when we read the Book of Exodus; . . . it is a curious thing that when Moses announces the final plague to fall upon Egypt and exhorts all the house of Israel to kill an unblemished lamb and smear its blood on the door posts and eat unleavened cakes, not in leisure but in haste, . . . everyone does it!  Silly as it all sounds, it’s something to do, I guess, . . . and everyone does it.  And when the lamb’s blood protects all the Israelites from the Angel of Death . . . but none of the Egyptians . . . and Pharaoh expels all the Jews from Egypt as a consequence, freeing them from their slavery, . . . everyone cheers and says, “Blessed be the God of our Fathers!”  . . . But when Pharaoh repents of his leniency and pursues the Israelites with an army . . . and the Red Sea blocks any hope of escape.  . . . A kind of spiritual paralysis seizes the Israelites . . . and they forget all about the wonderful God Who protected them with lamb’s blood . . . and they blame both Moses and God for their present danger:

“Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?  What have you done to us, in bringing us out of Egypt?  Is not this what we said to you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’?  For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

Blame is always the first thing to happen when paralysis of the human soul sets in.  … I guess fear does it to us.  When death confronts us, . . . our hearts and minds, frightened by our vulnerability, find no comfort in trusting what cannot be managed.  . . . And the Lord God Almighty is certainly one of those things that cannot be managed, . . . hard as we try.  And so, on many occasions . . . the odd paralyzed soul will say to me, “Well, Father, I have no trouble believing in God.  After all, look around at the grandeur of Nature.  . . . But where is there any evidence that God protects us from death?”  . . . And so, these poor spiritual invalids live like dead people, . . . full of blame.

    But God has compassion for us and for our fearfulness, . . . and God will often act on our behalf.  The incident at the Red Sea is just such an occasion; . . . because,

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.  And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

And after all the Israelites had run between those walls of water to the other side . . . the Lord God Almighty lets the sea return to its place . . . and the Egyptians are stymied.  After that, the Book of Exodus says; . . . after that, “the people . . . believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.”

    But if you continue reading the Book of Exodus, . . . the people don’t believe in Moses for very long; . . . only a little farther on in the Book of Exodus . . . the people find another reason to blame poor Moses for their fear.  . . . And I guess, from this, the Lord God Almighty realized that it just isn’t enough to believe in Moses.  . . . Because in the fullness of time the Lord God Almighty sent Jesus for us to believe in; . . . the Lord God Almighty sent us Jesus, . . . and Mary wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger because there was no place for them at the inn.  . . . The Word of God became Incarnate, and dwelt among us full of grace and truth, so that anyone who has “seen” Jesus, . . . anyone who has a place for Him in their heart and ponders His holy humanity and struggles to appropriate what Jesus has said to us, . . . anyone who has “seen” Jesus has seen God.  That is the purpose of the Incarnation:  . . . it is a revelation of God in the human idiom.

    And then came the Crucifixion, the subject of the wonderful prayers and liturgies of Holy Week (which Lent prepared us to keep); . . . then came the Crucifixion by which the Holy Cross of Jesus has “grounded” us; . . . the Holy Cross of Jesus has “grounded” us so that surges of fear need never paralyze us again.  . . . Silly as it sounds, . . . like the lamb’s blood on the lintels of the Israelite homes in Egypt, . . . the blood of God’s Lamb shall protect us from death forever.

    But like Creation itself, . . . God does His best work when we cannot see Him doing it; . . . like Creation itself, God does His best work when we only get to see the results.  And so, Jesus having been crucified on a Friday,

after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week,[which was Sunday], Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre.  And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.  . . . And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.  But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”

Just like at the Red Sea, the Lord God rolls back the weight of the immovable; … just like at the Red Sea, the Lord God rolls back the stone which seals off the way to where the dead body of Jesus had been placed.  . . . The Lord God Almighty rolls back the stone . . . not to let Jesus out . . . but to let the rest of us in.  . . . And the tomb is empty!  . . . “Come, see the place where he lay,” the angel says.  . . . Just when you think that God has been defeated; . . . just when we think we can blame God with confidence for expecting us to believe in Him; . . . just when we think that God has been defeated, . . . He spreads out the evidence that takes our breath away.  . . . “Do not be afraid”, God says.  For Christ is risen!

    Do you remember the end of the Passion which was read on Palm Sunday?  The Pharisees went to Pilate to ask for a guard to secure the sepulchre against the body of Jesus being removed and His followers then claiming “resurrection.”  . . . Well, in spite of everyone’s best efforts to seal the dead up and keep the living away; . . . in spite of everyone’s best efforts to post a guard of burly, intimidating soldiers carrying the latest in weapons technology; . . . in spite of everyone’s best efforts, . . . the tomb is empty!  For, Christ is risen!  And it’s not a resuscitation, like Lazarus, either.  No one comes out of the tomb.  But what does the angel say?  . . . “He is not here; . . . for he has risen.”  . . . And this is a tremendous thing.  . . . Remember Matthew’s account of the crucifixion we read on Palm Sunday?  Over and over again Matthew says that each thing was done “in fulfillment of the Scriptures” or “in fulfillment of what was said by the prophet.”  Indeed, when Jesus is hung from the Cross, Matthew tells it in such a way as to remind us of the Twenty-second Psalm.  . . . It was all done in fulfillment of the Scriptures.  God told us he would save us in this way, . . . and He did.  . . . But at the empty tomb Matthew evokes no memories of Holy Scripture’s foretelling.  God never promised this.  . . . God has done a new thing!  Christ is risen . . . not resuscitated; . . . the flesh of Jesus is transfigured; . . . “life is changed, not ended” as we remember in the Mass for the Dead.

    Because, you see, God did not do this tremendous new thing for the sake of Jesus.  . . . He did it for us.  . . . The Lord God Almighty not only protects us from the consequence of sin; . . . the Lord God Almighty not only protects us from the Angel of Death by the Blood of His Lamb, . . . but He endows us with everlasting Life by the Resurrection of His Son.  And so, Saint Paul says in his Epistle to the Romans,

We were buried therefore with [Christ] by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

And in his Epistle to the Colossians , Paul also writes,

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, . . . For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

    Moreover, the Lord God Almighty did not do this thing for you alone.  For, what does the angel say to the two Maries?

go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.

You are sent from here to all those paralyzed souls who are afraid to trust in God … and who live like dead people, full of blame.  You are sent from here to call them to their senses and help them become disciples of Jesus.  . . . That’s your primary work, you know; . . . not to simply feed the poor . . . or to clothe the naked . . . or to provide scholarships for the needy, as much as such merciful works may please the Heart of God . . . and as satisfying as such things are to our conscience.  . . . But, Jesus has primarily chosen you to go quickly from here to call paralyzed souls to life so that they might find Jesus.  For, that is the final glory of this most holy festival; . . . because, as the two Maries “departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell [the] disciples . . . Jesus meets them and says, ‘Do not be afraid . . .’ ”  The final glory of this most holy festival is that, like the two Maries, . . . if you go your way, eager to tell others to expect to see Jesus, . . . you will see Him as well; . . . you will be met by Jesus on your way.  . . . For Christ is risen!  Alleluia!