Easter is a season of joy, peace and promise. Christians who truly believe in the Resurrection must be people filled with joy, living in peace-full hope. Easter is the realization that the Savior who said He will rise again finally did exactly that – He rose from the dead. There is no containing the joy and the fulfillment that comes from this realization for He promised that if He was able to do it, He will also make it happen to us.
True Christians always have a smile on their faces, or at the very least, in their hearts. There is a perpetual song that plays in their lives that the Lord is risen and He said for us “to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” There may be those who are stuck in the passion and death of Christ and live with long and gloomy faces. They have to move on to the glory of the Resurrection. There may be those who are stuck with Christmas and have reduced their faith into a pollyanna mixtures of shallow, pious devotions. They have to grow, take up the cross and pass over to the Resurrection.
The early Christians were persecuted and literally fed to the lions. But they went to their deaths singing joyous songs in praise of God. They would today be probably be considered a lunatic fringe. There was another man who was considered a fool, left everything and proclaimed the joys and the hope promised by the Risen Lord. St. Francis prayed that God make him an instrument of His peace to bring Gods’ joy where there is sadness, light where there is darkness, faith where there is doubt, hope where there is despair, and love where there is hatred. Today, another Francis proclaims “The Joy of the Gospel”. Pope Francis says, “A Christian is never bored or sad. Rather the one who loves Christ is full of joy and radiates joy.” Another time, he said: “Joy! Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad.” Indeed a sad Christian has not yet truly encountered the Risen Christ.