Through the love of Christ, we are beautifully transformed

Have you ever had the privilege of watching children color eggs for Easter? They start off with a dozen or so of white hard-boiled eggs. Then they mark them with a wax pencil.  Finally, they dip them in cups of colored vinegar-water where they soak in the dyes for about a minute. Eventually, the children enthusiastically raise the eggs from their respective cups, at which point the children smile because what were once dull, generic white eggs are now colorful and unique creations.

Believe it or not, the tradition of coloring eggs at Easter has religious meaning! Just as there is a transformation in the appearance of the eggs after the wax and coloring process, so, too, there is a transformation in the disciples of Jesus following the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

As we hear in John’s account of the disciples’ discovery of the empty tomb on the first “Easter,” the disciples “see” and “believe”; in other words, they have received from the crucified and risen Christ, the faith necessary to “see” the truth, namely, that the Jesus who was crucified just three days ago, has risen from the dead.

Before Jesus’ Resurrection, the disciples’ faith in the master was somewhat shaky and full of misunderstandings.  Now, having received the gift of Easter faith, they now see the past, present and future in a whole new way. They now view the world as we do, through Resurrection glasses.

Prior to Jesus’ death and Resurrection, all peoples were like those Easter eggs before these undergo coloring. We were all the same, dull, lifeless, destined to be consumed, not by human mouths but by the jaws of sin and eternal death. God the Father, aware of our powerlessness to change the situation, sent us His only Son, who offered a perfect sacrifice of atonement for our sins on the Cross, a sacrifice that would irrevocably transform the world’s destiny and status so much that we dare to call Jesus, “Redeemer of the World.”

So pleasing was Jesus’ sacrifice of love, that God our Father raised him from the dead and, at the same time, broke the curse that imprisoned us in our sins and made death an eternal separation from God. No, thanks to Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection, we celebrate at Easter the fact that now there is a way to be free of original sin through Baptism and our personal sins through the sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession.

We also celebrate at Easter that death is no longer the “end” of human existence but a passageway to new and better life where there are no more diseases, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more “good-byes” but life eternal in the Kingdom of Heaven, a Kingdom which did not exist before Jesus’ Resurrection at Easter and Ascension forty days later.

Now every human, like any white egg, has the potential to undergo a positive transformation, from being dull by sin, to colorful by the grace of Jesus who removes our sins and reveals the many unique beautiful colors, pastel and bold, which represent our God-given gifts and natural talents.    

Like the Easter eggs, like the first disciples, we, too, have undergone a transformation, which we commemorate and renew each year at Easter. In our Baptism, we united ourselves to Jesus who dipped us – not into cups of dye, but into the waters of new life, cleansing us of sin, making us Tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, adopted children of God and members of Christ’s Body, the Church.

Now, we’re like those colored eggs–radiant, and beautiful to behold.  We now have purpose in life and we can find meaning in an often senseless world–where we may, at times, feel like “broken eggs.” After all, life can deal some nasty blows–loneliness, disease, crime, poverty, war, separations due to divorce or death.  Why? Jesus is not done redeeming the world. The Earth is still a work in progress until Jesus returns. Until that day, we should not give up on God, who never gave up on us. Rather, with Jesus’ love, we should let our colors shine, because in God’s Easter Basket, which is the Church, we may find some damaged eggs, but no one’s a rotten egg! Happy Easter!

Father Comandini is coordinator of the Office for Ongoing Faith Formation