It seems to me that if we have been attentive and following all the events of Holy Week, it is possible to discern a play written in three acts. The curtain rises with a prelude: an intimate act of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet. An act rich in meaning and done in love. Then begins Act 1. It is a scene worthy of a large screen. Palm Sunday as the disciples and believers welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, the royal city, the long-awaited Messiah King.

Act 1 continues with a quiet scene, away from the bustling crowds of Passover, with a last meal with his closest friends and disciples. It is then, at the most sacred table fellowship of the Jewish faith, that Jesus shows the disciples the meaning of the proto-Eucharist just celebrated. On bended knee Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. It was an embodied parable of what it means to be a Eucharistic people: love and service. As the curtain falls on Act 1 and when we consider the meaning of Act 1, it is clear, it is love portrayed.

Act 2 begins with the whispers of Act 1 lingering. 30 pieces of silver have been exchanged, Peter has declared his fealty unto death. The scene shifts from the Upper Room to the garden where the traitor strikes and an innocent man is handed over to a night of trials. The sun rises on more trails. Our friend is handed over to the torturers, subjected to the Roman scourging, but it is not enough. The people cry out “Crucify him!”  As the curtain falls on Act 2, love portrayed is now love betrayed.

Act 3 opens at the stark place of execution – Calvary. Jesus the Galilean on the Roman cross of death.  We are presented by ambiguity. Was his mission nothing more than a good effort ending up in loss? Was our following all for naught? Is this the affirmation that “God so loved the world, He gave his only Son.”?  Even unto death?  Some disciples overcome with despair, fleeing from the sight of Jesus on the cross.  Those remaining are left to wait in slowly waning hope.

In time we will come to understand how to name the Act. We will come to know that God so loved the world He held nothing back so that all might be saved. 

He is taken down from the cross and placed in a tomb as night falls. The theater is darkened, but the curtain has been torn, there is only the faint light of hope illuminating the stage.

“…early in the morning, while it was still dark…”  

Through the long days and nights we have waited to see how Act 3 will end.  Jesus had told us that he would be raised on the third day. 

The rising sun on the third day reveals not a risen savior but an empty tomb.  What? How? … so many questions. When does Act 3 end? What name shall we give this Act?

On the darkened stage, the Resurrection unfolded in secret.  No sunlight illuminated the event.  No human being witnessed it.   And even now, two thousand years later, no human narrative can contain it.  It is a mystery fully known only to God.  Its fullness lies in holy darkness, shielded from our eyes.  

All we can believe is that somehow, in an ancient tomb when hope seemed to have flown from life, God worked in secret to bring life out of death.  Somehow, from the heart of loss and desolation, God brought about the conditions for the possibility of our encounter with the depth of the mystery of Love.  It is only now that we can see the Cross for what it truly is  LOVE DISPLAYED.

We’ve the advantage of two millennia of reflection. We’ve the advantage of the faith of countless generations handed on to us. We are able to look upon the cross, Jesus’ arms wide open and see the waiting embrace of  love displayed for all time to see. We believe, because we see through the lens of Resurrection.

The three Acts of love: LOVE PORTRAYED, LOVE BETRAYED and LOVE DISPLAYED are the great witness to an epic encounter of Love with its opposite – not “hate,” but death. Our Easter experience calls us to see this encounter and know that Jesus has passed through the maw of death and has risen…He has risen.

Love is shown to be stronger than Death.  We experience love in our lives: wives and husbands, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends and family.  Our experience that says this thing, this love, is something beyond us, more than us, something eternal.  Something that can not simply cease at the edge of the grave. And our intuition is correct. Love suffers all things, endures all things… even death. And rises to eternal life.

The 17^th century metaphysical poet John Donne understood part of the mystery of the Resurrection when we left us Holy Sonnet 10:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; ….. One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

What about Act 3? The curtain never fell, the play lives on as new characters enter the stage: the Easter people.

We are Easter people, called to the world – to be the Love of Christ on display for all to see. And more. In the words of St. Augustine – “see what you are, become what you see.”  See the life of Christ, live as Christ, become what you see.

This is the gift of the Resurrection. This is the challenge of tomorrow and all the days that follow: to live Act 3, love displayed.

Happy Easter.

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Image credit: Eisenhower Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington DC