>> Christ, Our Sacrificed Lamb

 

 Today we celebrate the first announcement of the Resurrection—first to the women, then to the other disciples. If you pay attention to the liturgy of this Mass, one phrase recurs many times: Christus pascha notrum immolatus est. This phrase originates from the Epistle of St. Paul that we read during this Mass: “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7).

 

 In this homily, I want to explain the meaning of this phrase.

 

I/ Passover: the Lamb of God

 

 To understand what St. Paul is saying, we must first understand what is meant by “Passover.”

 

 Today we celebrate 부활절 (bu hwal jeol) 復活節, a term that accurately describes the central event we are celebrating today: the Resurrection. However, this is not the term St. Paul uses, nor does it appear anywhere else in the Bible or the liturgy. 復活節 is a Korean and Chinese term coined to explain the meaning of the feast, but it is not a translation.

 

  In Korean, we also use the terms 과월절 (gwa wall jeol) or 유월절 (you wall jeol) to refer to the Passover of the Old Testament. A term that explains the meaning of this Old Testament feast, namely that of “passing over” or “going over,” referring to the plague that struck the Egyptians but passed over the houses of the Hebrews and did not touch them.

 

  We should not be mistaken by the fact that we use several different words. Whatever words we use, it is important to understand that there is only one Passover, for both the Old Testament and the New Testament; the Old Testament Passover was the preparation, and the one fulfilled by Our Lord Jesus Christ—His death and Resurrection—is its fulfillment and realization.

 

 This is why the Latin liturgy uses an unique word which is “Pascha,” a term derived from Aramaic and Hebrew, in order the one and only Passover fulfilled by the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

 But we must go further: St. Paul tells us that Christ is “our Passover sacrificed”: Christus pascha notrum immolatus est. The term “Passover/Pascha” had come to designate not only the feast but the victim of the sacrifice itself. When St. Paul tells us that Christ is our Passover, he is telling us that Christ is a sacrificed lamb.

 

 Easter is the sacrifice of the Lamb of God; that is what we must remember.

 

II/ Easter: Realizing the Power of the Sacrifice

 

  Easter is therefore not merely the feast of the Resurrection; it is the feast of the slain Lamb. Why does Our Lord rise again? Redemption was achieved on the cross; Good Friday, in a sense, is sufficient. When Christ dies on the Cross, the temple curtain is torn, the earth trembles, and many of the dead are raised. Just before dying, Our Lord says, “It is accomplished.” It is indeed on the Cross that everything is accomplished. So is the Resurrection unnecessary? Of course not; the Resurrection is essential to make us understand that the one who died on the cross is not merely a generous man who died for his friends, but the Lamb of God. The Resurrection is proof of the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ; indeed, only God can rise from the dead, only God can raise himself up, can return to life after death.

 

 Let us ask ourselves: yes, redemption was accomplished on the Cross, but without the Resurrection, who would have believed in the divinity of Our Lord? Apart from the Blessed Virgin and St. John, probably no one… We therefore need the Resurrection, which is irrefutable proof that the One who died on the Cross is indeed God.

 

  Thanks to the Resurrection, we understand that it is indeed God who died on the Cross, and therefore He is truly the Lamb of God, the victim—both man and God—who alone can reconcile us with God. Today we do not merely celebrate a resurrection; rather, we say with St. Paul: Christ is truly our Paschal Lamb, our sacrificial victim, the one who reconciles us with God.

 

 Through the feast of Easter, we understand what took place during Holy Week: it was indeed a single sacrifice; Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter are the stages of a sacrifice: Holy Thursday marks its beginning, when the meaning of this sacrifice is revealed to us, namely that it is a sacrifice made out of love: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). Good Friday is the fulfillment of this sacrifice. And the feast of Easter is the completion of this sacrifice, which proclaims the good news to the whole world.

 

III/ A life of sacrifice

 

  Dear faithful, this is the mystery of this day: through the Resurrection of Our Lord, we come to understand the meaning of the Cross—that the one who dies on the Cross is not an innocent man but the Lamb of God who dies for our sins.

 

  From this, we can draw two conclusions:   

 

 First of all, let us never separate the Resurrection from the sacrifice; indeed, it is a common error in the modern Church to downplay the connection between sacrifice and Resurrection. Thus, crosses without an image of the Crucified One are sometimes used, with the justification that “Jesus has risen, so He no longer needs to be depicted on the Cross.” This is a conception that is no longer Catholic… Some Catholics believe we should no longer speak of the Cross but only of the Resurrection to present a supposedly “more positive” image of Catholicism. By doing this, we no longer understand the mystery of salvation. Let us reject this: the Resurrection reveals to us the power of the sacrifice of the Cross. Let us therefore never separate the Cross from the Resurrection; the two go together. Let us therefore love the crosses that bear the image of the Crucified One; Easter is the feast of the Lamb of God who sacrifices himself on the Cross.

 

 Let us attend Mass, especially during the Easter season, for Mass is the sacrifice of the Lamb of God made present on the altar.

 

  Second, let us heed the words of the Sequence: “To the Paschal Victim, Christians offer a sacrifice of praise.” Only priests offer the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but all the baptized must offer their own sacrifice, which is a sacrifice of praise, a spiritual worship (Rom 12:1); it involves giving thanks inwardly to Our Lord for his sacrifice and uniting ourselves to his sacrifice in the acts of our daily lives. The Christian’s response to the Paschal sacrifice is to unite ourselves to that sacrifice through our own offering: offering our joys and our sorrows. By doing this, we have a real impact on the world; we sanctify it.

 

 Dear faithful, during the Easter season we must meditate more deeply on the greatness of the sacrifice of the Cross, whose meaning is fully revealed to us at the feast of Easter, and give thanks for the Lamb of God who, having died on the Cross, has reconciled us with God the Father. To this meditation let us add our personal sacrifice to sanctify the world with the Lamb of God.