BECAUSE HE LIVES!
By Deacon Keith A Fournier
© Third Millennium, LLC
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“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, Because He lives, all fear is gone; Because I know He holds the future, And life is worth the living, Just because He lives!”
Bill Gaither
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It is rather odd for a Catholic Deacon to greet Easter Sunday, with the refrain from a Bill Gaither song going on inside of his head and heart. After all isn’t that an evangelical Protestant hymn? However, that is precisely what happens to me on Easter Sunday. I find myself singing, “in my heart” the refrain of this popular evangelical Protestant song. Perhaps it is because of all my years of working with so many dear evangelical Protestant friends in pro-life work. I have long considered myself to be an “Evangelical Catholic”, using the phrase almost two decades ago in my first book, back when it was considered controversial. Whatever the cause, I welcome the experience of this song coming to life within me on this great Day of Days, because it is used by the Holy Spirit each year to awaken faith within me.

The verses of this song provide a backdrop for some Resurrection reflections which I offer to you.

“Because He lives”

That tomb was … and is empty. Death could not contain Crucified, poured out Love.

The debt has been paid, the last enemy death has been defeated and heavens gates have been opened wide.

Because He lives we shall live forever in Him. There is a glorified Resurrected Savior seated at the “right hand” of the Father and He holds a place for you and for me! Through taking on our human nature He did what we could not do for ourselves. He suffered the penalty for all the wrong choices, the sins, the misused and abused exercise of freedom- of the entire human race. He bridged the gap that had opened wide between the Father, who had created us for eternal communion, and the sons and daughters who had rejected His invitation. He restored us to a higher place now, through His obedience unto death, even death on a Cross. Now, the stone is rolled away.

In His sacred humanity, He transformed the entirety of the human experience and invites us all into a new way, a way that beckons us to follow in His path and, when freely chosen, leads us to fullness of life now and eternal life and love in a world to come. He has torn the veil that existed between heaven and earth and opened up the beauty and hope of eternity for all who were once bound by the chains of time. He has given purpose, meaning and destination to the lost sheep wandering aimlessly in empty self pursuits. Because He lives!

“I can face tomorrow”

There is now a clear and unfolding plan and purpose in my life; and in the life of the world now being re-created in Him. We can face tomorrow. Because He lives, we can begin now to see our lives differently, if we open ourselves to His Spirit and allow Him to replace our finite vision with an eternal perspective; the new eyesight of those who walk by faith.

His redemptive mission continues on now, within us and through us to a world waiting to be born. He carries forward the redemptive promise through time in and through His Body on earth, His church, into which we have been baptized and of which we are now members. All of our tomorrows, however many (or few) there may be in this life, can now be filled with redemptive purpose… if we choose to live them “in Him.”

We can find the meaning and purpose of eternity revealed in the temporal realities of every today and tomorrow. The real “stuff” of our mundane daily lives can become the ingredients of our own sanctification and the materials out of which the new creation is fashioned around us. The materials have not changed; we have, because He lives now in us. There is nothing we face alone now, no tomorrow that is not now redeemed and made new in the One who is timeless but who, out of love, came into time to redeem and transform it!

Life for a Christian is not circular but linear. It is always moving forward to fulfillment in Him, both personally and universally. There is a beginning - and an end - which is but a new beginning in the One who is Himself both the Beginning and the End. Time is now purposeful and unfolds into eternity, in Him who has entered time and transformed it by His life, death and Resurrection. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

“Because He Lives”

The dirt, the ground, which was fashioned through Him, and upon which He breathed and came forth the first man, that ground upon which He walked in His earthly mission and into which they placed His sacred, lifeless Body, that ground could not contain Him; when the time had fully come it opened and He Rose victorious from the dead!

That Glorious Day, the “first day” of the week, the first day of the new creation, the Day that the early Christians called the “Eighth Day”; is outside of time. It is the portal to eternity. He was the firstborn and we follow now in His trail. He began the new creation and is making all things new now, within us and around us, because He lives!

“All fear is gone”.

“Be not afraid” He cries out as the stone bursts forth. “Be gone fear” He manifests the light that dispels all the darkness! “Fear is useless, what is needed is trust.”

The author of that ancient letter to the Hebrews, uncovered the root of all fear, the fear of death: “Now since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life. (Hebrews 2:14-15)”.

All fear is gone now. Death has been dealt a fatal blow because He lives. Through sin, death came into the world, and now through the Sinless One it has been vanquished. No longer an enemy it becomes a friend, an ally, to those who choose to live in the One who lives! No longer need it be an end. Rather, it becomes a new beginning for those who choose to hide their lives in His wounded side and live their lives joined to Him.

Nothing, nothing can separate us from that Love incarnated in the Crucified, Risen Son of the True and Living God, nothing. There is nothing to fear! I am free from fear because He lives!
“Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives!

The empty angst so evident in much of the contemporary human experience reveals the presence of a gaping hole in the human soul. It has been there since the first wrong choice in Eden. Though some of the bad fruit may be contemporary in its expression, this emptiness is no different than the hole in the soul experienced by the ancients.

Nothing but God can satisfy that hunger in the human heart, that aching for meaning and purpose. No- thing can fill that hole, only Someone, the One who holds the future. Pascal wrote of this hole in the soul as a “God shaped vacuum”. St. Augustine of Hippo expressed this universally experienced sentiment:” Our hearts are restless God until they rest in Thee”

We were created for purpose. We were created for meaning. We were created for Love. We were created for relationship. We were created for God. He alone makes life worth living just because He Lives!
When we strive to embrace the implications of that empty tomb, then and only then, will we be ready for eternity. Until then, we can find peace in comprehending the vast implications of the fact that He holds the future - our future and the future of this whole world that He still loves.

The events that we remembered and celebrated during these Holy Days provide a framework, a lens, and a “hermeneutic” of meaning for everything that happens now in the stuff of our daily life, if we let them!

Even suffering, especially in the lives of those who follow this One who has been raised, now takes on value - redemptive, life transforming value- just because He lives!

On this Easter Day, let us drink from the well of this “Mystery” that is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let us embrace the grace that is the beginning of the New Creation. I use the phrase “mystery” with great intention, not in the contrived shallow Western sense that reduces a “mystery” to something like a puzzle to be solved.

Rather, I use the word “mystery” in the sense that the word was understood in the world into which God in the Flesh, Jesus Christ was incarnated -that “world” in which He walked, was crucified and was raised. To the ancients, the word “mystery” referred to that which is beyond our frail capacity to be fully grasped- because of our finite limitations. It spoke to eternity. So too does the Resurrection.

The mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ grasps us and changes us through its very dynamic unfolding in our own daily lives -if we embrace it in faith and live it in fact.
The empty tomb makes us new.

Because He lives!
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Deacon Fournier is a Catholic Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, serving Saint Benedict Parish while he pursues a PhD in Moral Theology at Catholic University of America. He holds degress in Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville (BA) and the John Paul II Institute of the Lateran University MTS) as well as a Law Degree(JD)from the University of Pittsburgh Law School. He and his wife Laurine raised five children and are now happy grandparents.