Deacon Mike Meyer / Sunday, April 20, 2025 / Categories: Blog, Homilies The Power of the Resurrection Homily For Easter 2025 There come times in our lives when we’re called to put up or shut up, and today’s one of those days for me. This is a big day for me—I’ve only preached Easter once before, and my monthly homilies never draw crowds like this. So if I’m going to preach to so many people about our need to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, I think I at least owe you an explanation as to why I believe. Now, my reasons are so many that if I were to share them all today, I’d never preach on Easter again. So, I’ll limit myself to one—the power of the Resurrection—which is evident in our readings and the life of the Church. Our Gospel passage includes a peculiar detail that, in my opinion, reveals the power of the Resurrection—the burial cloth. Both Luke and John mention Jesus’ burial cloth in their Gospels, noting that it was just lying there. It wasn’t tossed to the side or crumpled on the floor. “The grave-clothes [didn’t] look as if they had been put off or taken off; they were lying there . . . as if [Jesus’ body] had simply evaporated out of them.”[1] No grave robber would’ve taken the time to unwrap the corpse and neatly place the cloth back on the stone slab where Jesus had lain. More than likely, a robber would’ve stolen the expensive linen and left the body behind.[2] Jesus’ burial cloth caught the disciples’ and the evangelists’ attention enough to pass it on, and it still captures our attention today. You may have heard of the Shroud of Turin, a 14-foot-long, 3-foot-wide linen cloth that many believe to be Jesus’ burial shroud. Though not without controversy, most scientists trace the Shroud to Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death based upon the nature and style of the woven fabric, pollen and soil deposits unique to that area found in the cloth, and X-ray measurements of the Shroud’s deterioration rate. The blood of a male human soaks the Shroud in patterns that mirror the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion: spine-like lacerations around the head, scourge marks on the back and sides, square-shaped wounds in the wrists and feet, and an oval wound between the fourth and fifth ribs that was inflicted after death. The Shroud also bears the image of a crucified man—front and back, and no one knows how the image was made. The image penetrates only the uppermost fibers of the cloth, which rules out paint, chemical reactions, vapors, and the corpse as sources. Think of it as being discolored, like a sun tan. Remarkably, it’s a three-dimensional image that appears as a photographic negative, and it reveals details from outside and inside of the body, like a photograph and X-ray combined. Scientists hypothesize that billions of watts of ultra-violet radiation would have had to have pulsed at durations shorter than one-forty billionth of a second to create the image without incinerating the cloth. That’s more energy than what’s generated by all UV light sources today. For the image to appear in 3-D, the body would have to have become mechanically transparent, losing its solidity and allowing the cloth to collapse into the body and be surrounded by the radiation. While it’s the only credible explanation for what happened, it can’t be tested because only a supernatural source could generate that amount of energy in such rapid pulsations. The Shroud’s pretty powerful proof of the Resurrection, but it’s not the Shroud itself that leads me to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. It’s what happens next. The disciples saw the Shroud, and they believed, much to their peril. Messiah-wannabees were common in Jesus’ day, and they all followed the same pattern. Someone claimed to be the Messiah and attracted followers. The Messiah figure gained enough of a following to make the religious and political leaders nervous, so they killed him. Then, the authorities hunted down the followers and killed them, too. It happened all the time. That’s why the disciples were hiding in the Upper Room. They knew their likely fate. So, it's not the cloth but the fruits of the cloth that convince me that Jesus rose from the dead. The disciples knew without a doubt that Jesus was dead, not just really dead, but really most sincerely dead. Then they saw the cloth, they believed that Jesus rose from the dead, and it changed them. They believed so strongly that they left the safety of the Upper Room and began preaching the Resurrection of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. All but one Apostle died a martyr for preaching Christ’s Resurrection. Yet, their successors have stuck with that message for over 2,000 years. It ultimately reached us and almost 2.5 billion Christians today through our faith-filled mothers and fathers, beloved grandparents, and timeless ancestors known only to God, many of whom also risked their lives to believe. In the Catholic Church alone, that message inspires 227,000 schools, 10,000 orphanages, 102,000 hospitals and clinics, and $4 billion of financial support worldwide today. Only something as powerful as the Resurrection could produce so much good fruit for such a long time. That’s why I believe, and therein lies our challenge. Belief in the Resurrection means that we die with Christ in baptism and rise again with him to eternal life. It changes us for the better forever. All who truly believe in the Resurrection “view everything against the background of eternity and no longer live as if this world was all that mattered. . . . [They] set giving above getting, serving above ruling, forgiving above avenging.”[3] They live by God’s values, not the world’s. It’s time to put up or shut. Do we truly believe in the Resurrection? If so, what are we doing about it? The fruits of our lives will prove whether or not we really believed in the Resurrection . Believe, worship, welcome the resurrected Christ in the Eucharist, serve, love, and you’ll find that the supernatural power of the Resurrection has changed you for the better forever. Readings: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Psalm 118; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9 [1] William Barclay, The Gospel of John, vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 311. [2] Ignatius Study Bible, 199, note. [3] William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 171-172. Spiritual Strength Print 779 Please login or register to post comments.