To the Band of Brothers: April 17, 2024

Huge spoiler alert! Don’t continue reading if you haven’t seen the movie “The Sixth Sense” or plan to see it in the near or even distant future. Trust me, a spoiler will ruin it. I’m compelled to warn you because I know how important stories and how they are told are. Nothing irks me more than having an ending of a book or joke revealed before it even begins. Even if I’m watching a movie about a historical occurrence I studied in AP History, took the exam, got a five out of a possible five, and was given three credit hours at Harvard University (none of that actually happened to me), I don’t like knowing the ending. 

Please, please, please, don’t tell me as I am standing in line to watch “Titanic” that the ship sank after hitting an iceberg. Don’t whisper in my ear as we sit down with a bucket of popcorn to see “Lincoln” that the tall guy in the large black hat gets shot in a theater. And please don’t tell me with a grin at the ticket booth that Jesus resurrects and walks out of the tomb when we’re about to see “The Passion of the Christ.”

All that being said, for the sake of a point I would like to make, I am going to play the spoiler here. If you are okay with that… read on.

The movie is called “The Sixth Sense.” It’s a psychological thriller directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. It tells the story of a little boy who can see and talk to dead people. Willis’s character is a child psychologist who begins to treat the kid in order to get to the bottom of his unique talent. Throughout the whole movie you see the interaction between the psychologist and the boy. It’s not until the very end when you find out the psychologist has been dead the whole time. When the director finally reveals that to you, he cleverly gives you flashbacks of all the interactions throughout the movie. Knowing now the guy was dead the whole time, you see how the interactions were completely exclusive, they involved no one else.

The movie is magnificent because the story is told in a very unique and creative way. The writer keeps you engaged, draws you in, and then, when he has you in the crosshairs, shoots you between the eyes. That shot is the whole movie. It is the key he gives you to unlock the true greatness of the story. As a matter of fact, you don’t realize how awesome the whole story is until you get that key. It is only with the key that the movie makes the most sense. 

The same happens with the resurrection of Jesus. The key to understanding all of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the resurrection. You can start reading book one, chapter one, verse one and make your way through thousands of years of highs and lows, good times and bad, sickness and health, across the Red Sea, over the mountains of Moriah and Tabor, through the wilderness of Kadesh, and wade through the waters of the Jordan only to realize it doesn’t make perfect sense until you get to that empty tomb in Jerusalem. 

It's only from the perspective of the resurrection that you can truly go back and read the whole of scriptures. This is the reason why the post-resurrection stories we have heard at Mass since Easter Sunday tell us of Jesus “opening the scriptures” to the disciples. Jesus tells them how everything from Moses and the prophets referred to him. Like the disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) and later the Apostles in the upper room (Luke 24:44-49), the risen Christ allows them to reread the whole story using the empty tomb as the key to understanding.

It is understandable why St. Peter, in his speech found in the Acts of the Apostles, is able to refer to “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers,” as the one who put this all into motion from the very beginning (3:13-15). It is the reason why the Church can go back to the Old Testament and clearly claim Jesus to be the new Adam and the new Moses. It is why theologians can go back into the Hebrew texts and refer to the Virgin Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant, Noah’s ark as the Church, and Jesus as Isaiah’s suffering servant. 

The resurrection account revealed in the New Testament is the key to unlocking the Jesus concealed in the Old Testament. It’s what makes it all make sense. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised to hear this theme running consistently throughout the next few weeks at Mass. It will all culminate with the celebration of Pentecost Sunday when we remember the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and officially end the season of Easter. But that’s a whole other story… or is it?