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Fr. Chad VanHoose, Associate Pastor April 1, 2018

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There are many different ways that we can distinguish groups of people. Take for example, those who come to Easter Mass at dawn and those who are still dead in the tomb.  The early bird gets the worm right? There are those kids who wake their parents up on Easter morning and Christmas morning to get their baskets and gifts. There are those kids who need to be woken up by their parents. I don’t think any of those are here today. Then we have runners and non-runners. Another distinction we can make between people. There is even a great difference in that category of runners. There are those who run toward something, those who run toward a goal, and there are those who run away from something. Maybe they are being chased or they are fearful. 
St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians uses this analogy of runners in a race. St Paul mentions for us that we Christians should run toward something. He says to us, “Run so as to win.” Not to win a perishable crown, something that will fade and won’t last. But a crown, a reward that is in-perishable and at the end of his life when Paul is in prison, and perhaps you have seen this new movie Paul the Apostle of Christ, this is how it ends, Paul in prison, penning a letter, one final testament to his beloved son Timothy. And he takes up that image again with Timothy saying, “I have competed well, I have run the race, I have kept the faith.”
Today the church again sets before us the character of St Peter, this companion of Paul, the first apostle of the 12 and the eventual leader of the Roman Church. Yet there is a great difference today in Peter from the Peter we saw on Holy Thursday.  You see on Thursday and Friday Peter ran, but he fled. Peter ran from any association with Jesus. Peter ran from the cross. But today, early on that first Easter morning we see Peter run toward something. Peter runs to Jesus, Peter runs to that empty tomb. 
And I love how the gospel today begins with Mary of Magdela running to tell the apostles, “They have taken our Lord and I do not know where they have put Him.” That first apostle to the apostles. Mary, a woman, goes and runs to wake up the apostles, to tell them something has changed. Something is different.
Then you have this footrace, this footrace between the beloved disciple, who we can assume is the apostle John, and Peter. John, the much more youthful apostle, even flaunts a bit that he runs faster than Peter, he wins the race, he gets to the empty tomb first. As a bit of an aside, I think it’s fitting that the faster associate pastor is celebrating these two early morning masses at dawn today. But I digress. More importantly in this scene we see that Peter has begun to run back to our Lord. He has been changed. He runs now toward this goal and Peter will never turn back. 
We see evidence of this in this in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. We find Peter now some time later and now he is on mission. Today in the Acts Peter is proclaiming the gospel to the gentiles, proclaiming the saving death and resurrection to all people. Peter, my brothers and sisters has been changed. At this point he is mature, at this point he is committed in his discipleship. He has grown past those failures, past his waffling, past his wavering, and become the one he was made to be.
Peter that rock on whom Christ will build his church, Peter that apostle who after turning back would strengthen the brethren and lead that new church called the way, the Church of Christ. Peter, Paul, John, Mary Magdalene, these are for us today witnesses of Christ and witnesess run toward the goal. We each run around in our busy lives.
We are weighed down with so much business. Chasing many things or being chased by many fears, many doubts, many worries. But brothers and sisters there is one thing, or rather person whom we should run toward, Jesus Christ. That we would be those witnesses of his saving power, that we would never stop running to the empty tomb, so run to our risen Lord as if your lives depended on it, because they do.

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