Sunday Gospel Reflection (April 20, 2025)

Our only true hope is the Resurrection. It’s easy, maybe even tempting, for Christians to speak of the Resurrection with boldness. But that boldness can sometimes sound arrogant, as if Christians alone have it figured out while the rest of the world stumbles in ignorance. That’s not the posture we need. I don’t want to undermine Christian confidence in the Resurrection (I certainly have my own), but I do want to challenge how we speak about it—especially in a world drowning in cynicism and despair.

A world without Resurrection is a world without hope. Look around. Much of the modern narrative—whether in entertainment, on social media, or in cultural discourse—is shaped by disillusionment and skepticism. Among younger generations especially, the loudest voices often belong to the most cynical. This is more than a cultural trend; it’s a reflection of what happens when the Resurrection is absent from the human story.

Without Jesus, where does one genuinely place their hope? Beyond sentimentality or vague optimism, what real foundation is there? Most don’t even try to answer that question. And when they do, the alternatives to Christ's Resurrection are often hollow, if not outright bleak. Every religion and philosophy, in its own way, wrestles with the reality of death—but only Christianity points to an empty tomb.

Even today’s bizarre glorification of death as an end in itself is still just that: an attempt at an answer. But Christ’s Resurrection is not a metaphor. It is a historical, physical event. And as St. Paul boldly declared in 1 Corinthians 15:14, if Christ has not been raised, all of this collapses. The Resurrection isn’t one belief among many—it’s the cornerstone of everything we are and everything we hope for.

The Resurrection demands a new lens that must shape the way Christians think, live, and speak. It must not be from a place of superiority, but from deep, shared awareness of what a Resurrection-less world really means. We don’t proclaim the Resurrection because we’re better; we proclaim it because we know what despair looks like, and we’ve seen the only thing that truly conquers it.

Christ’s death, at first glance, looked like defeat. But His Resurrection demands a redefinition of everything: past, present, and future. It changes the stakes. It changes us. This is the truth we must carry into the world: not a triumphant shout from a pedestal, but a hopeful cry from the battlefield. Without the Resurrection, we have nothing, but with it, we have everything.