April 20, 2025 Essay: Easter: The Blossoming of Hope
The recent fires in Los Angeles County scorched the earth in unimaginable ways. There was devastation over thousands of acres. Homes were destroyed. Lives were lost. Livelihoods vanished in a matter of minutes. The lush vegetation incinerated into heaps of ash that blackened the landscape. Several weeks after the fires were brought under control and eventually extinguished, The New York Times, not unlike other media outlets, featured a story about the resilience not only of those who had lost everything in the fires, but also of nature itself. Included in the NYT story was a photograph of a single flower blossoming in the ashes.
As I was preparing my homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent and reflecting on the words of the Prophet Isaiah that were to be read that day, “See I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43: 18b-19a), I was reminded of the NYT story and the photograph that accompanied it. Out of the ashes, a brilliantly colored harbinger of new life was flowering.
Let us recall the backstory to the words written in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. The people of Israel, God’s chosen ones, were being held captive in a foreign land. Jerusalem lies in ruin. Their homes are reduced to heaps of ash. Their great temple and its Holy of Holies are nothing more than piles of stone and mortar. They are traumatized by their defeat, by what appeared to them as the death knell of their kingdom, abandoned by God and adrift in a torrent of despair. The message of God that Isaiah delivered to them at their darkest moment was one of challenge. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? It became for them a rekindling of hope for the future—to return to their homes, to reclaim their identity that could never be robbed from them, and to rebuild a city and nation destroyed by treachery, corruption, and greed. The shackles of despair were broken. Even in a foreign land, a country unrecognizable to them, they confidently looked to the future, knowing that their captivity would come to an end, that God was ever faithful to God’s promise.
We live in a time not unlike that of the ancient Israelites. Overwhelmed by ferocious and vengeful forces, we are like captives in a foreign land. Our attempts to block out or ignore the din of doom only leads us to a feeling of helplessness. We are carried by circumstances beyond our control to the dark place of despair. Hope is relegated to the pages of the Bible, to stories of long ago. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be learned from the message of Isaiah and the blossoming of a single flower out of a bed of ashes, if we but dare to resist the arrogance of despair and that of the false prophets of doom among us. For without hope, there is no future.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the abyss of death itself is the wellspring of our hope. It is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s message to the Israelites. God’s love for us will carry us through the hardships we may face and the wanton upheavals that surround us to a future filled with promise. Because of the Resurrection of Jesus, we need not succumb to fear and the sinister forces of darkness. It is the false prophets who are doomed because they know not hope.
To rejoice in the Resurrection of Jesus is to revel in God’s love for us. It is to enjoy a foretaste of the kingdom of God during our lifetime. Hope sustains us and allows us to break through the darkness of despair. With hope to guide us in all our words and actions, we will be like a forest flower rising out of the dry, charred earth to trumpet a new beginning where decency, truth, justice, and compassion matter.
May our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ this year be filled with the radiant light of hope! Happy Easter!
— Dennis J. Yesalonia, S.J., Pastor