If we think of Easter as more a sacrament and less a miracle, would its effect have a greater impact on us? The concept of Easter being a miracle relieves us from our being intimately involved with it. After all, a miracle is God’s doing. However, a sacrament is a reciprocal transaction, a gift from God that requires our involvement and participation. God performs miracles but men celebrate sacraments. God may work a miracle apart from men. Man, however, is essential to the presence of a sacrament.
If Easter is to have an impact on our faith at a deep and spiritual level, should it be considered a sacramental event? If we are invested in its meaning in the grace of God and with our flesh and blood Easter becomes a life source for us. Easter is sacramental when our words heal, when our hearts understand, when lesser values die in us for the sake of greater realities.
We are sacramental with Easter when men know us to be faithful. We are sacramental with Easter when our fellow man sees us suffer not for selfish advantage but for their redemption. Easter is never more sacramental than when one man gives his life on behalf of another. Christians seek to make Easter sacramental in their lives by their memory of Jesus. If Jesus is remembered, he has not died altogether. If the memory of Jesus inspires us to sacrificial love, Jesus is grace. Jesus is an Easter-maker.(Dawn Without Darkness, p 78, Anthony Padovano.)
Jesus became incarnate to not only teach us how to live our lives but to reside in Him through Jesus. When the priest says “in him through him and with him,” he’s reminding us of our participation in his birth, death and resurrection.
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