Pastor's Points: Easter Fools for Christ

Pastor's Points: Easter Fools for Christ

Happy Easter! Happy April Fools’ Day! I came across some statistics recently about the convergence of these two days.

Since 1700, 318 years ago, Easter has fallen on April 1 only 11 times! The last time Christians celebrated Easter on April 1 was in 1956. The next time this will happen will be in 2029 and 2040, it will then not be observed April 1 for another 68 years—2108. The next time after that will be in 2170.

April Fools’ Day is meant to be a day when we play a prank on someone who is gullible or who has forgotten that the calendar has passed from March to April.  I read recently where the BBC once broadcast a short documentary in a current affairs series purporting to show Swiss farmers picking freshly grown spaghetti in what they called the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest. The BBC was later flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a hoax on the news the next day.

Maybe what we can take from this April Fools’ Easter Sunday is the image of being a fool for Christ. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians said this:

For as I see it, God has exhibited us apostles as the last of all, like people sentenced to death, since we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and human beings alike.

We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless   and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment. (1 Cor. 4: 10-13)

Fools for Christ. That is what we are.  But what does that mean?  The late night talk show host, Stephen Colbert, has a good definition. He said that foolishness for Christ is the willingness “to be wrong in society, or wrong according to our time, but right according to our conscience, as guided by the Holy Spirit.” That is a pretty good definition. 

At the recent Youth Beach Retreat called “Seek,” there was a lot of foolishness. But it was good foolishness.  Young people were there freely professing their faith, singing about Christ and adoring Christ in the Eucharist.  In a world that says look out for yourself first, pay attention to and do whatever makes you feel good and don’t worry about what anyone thinks, our teens were there together being the fools we want them to be.  Granted, many are at different levels of faith and belief, some with just a mustard seed of faith, but they were there.  Remember, God can do great things with mustard seeds.  Our young people came and listened to the voice of God, to their peers and to the adults talk about their life and how God was working in and through them. Many were reconciled to God through the Sacrament of Confession. The youth were challenged to seek Christ, the one who came to give them life and give it abundantly.  They were invited, urged, to always seek out this Christ in their everyday life and to be bold witnesses for Him, bold fools for Christ.

There is great hope in the young Church.  I am inspired every time I am with them. Take a look at these videos from the weekend. You will see what I mean.  https://www.facebook.com/2017265025155398/videos/2034014113480489/

Easter Sunday tells the greatest story of our world and of our faith. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth and lived among us, taught us how to love, suffered and died for us and then rose from the dead.  What better story is there than that one?  What better reason to be a fool for Christ? Perhaps these coming 50 days of Easter can be a time when we strive to be a bit foolish like our youth.  Can you be a fool for Christ?