Happy Easter, Christ the King!
After our Lenten journey, after all the liturgies and prayers offered during this past Holy Week, after witnessing Our Lord crucified on the Cross, we have finally arrived at this new day, this day of great joy! Of course, for the first disciples at the scene, that joy did not come instantly, as we hear in today’s Gospel. As Mary Magdalene said: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Let us imagine the panic and anguish that Mary Magdalene and Peter must have felt at first upon realizing that the tomb was empty. Was it not enough to suffer the pain of seeing their Lord betrayed and crucified—including, for Peter, the anguish of having denied him—but now, on top of all that, somebody has taken his body? Surely something like this must have crossed Mary Magdalene’s and Peter’s minds. Perhaps there have been moments in your life, or even now, when, like Peter and Mary Magdalene, you are still trying to make sense of it all… after everything we have been through with Our Lord, is this all we receive? An empty tomb? Although the reality of the Resurrection surrounds us, we admit that there are moments when we struggle to feel that Easter joy. Even at the dawn of the new day in the First Light of Easter, we still always need God’s grace to sustain us in our trials and doubts. We haven’t heard it yet in this specific passage, but we know that Jesus will soon appear to Mary Magdalene and Saint Peter, and both of them will come to understand and believe in the Resurrection that has been accomplished for us and abides as the true reality of things.
Yet there is another person in this Gospel passage we hear today who, unlike Mary Magdalene and Peter, believes immediately upon seeing the empty tomb and the burial cloths. This disciple is not named, but is simply called “the other disciple.” Who is this other disciple? Of course it was John being humble about himself, but his choice of naming opens the door to the beautiful truth that the other disciple is each one of us! We go ahead of Peter to the tomb, we already know what we will find there, and yet, even though the tomb is empty, we continue to believe. The Resurrection completes the Paschal Mystery and ensures that our salvation is not a moment from the distant past, but an experience and a reality lived right here, in the present. We live in the reality of God’s love, which is greater than this world. We live in the reality of God’s love, which is more enduring than sin and pain. We live in the reality of God’s love, which is stronger than death.
As we heard in today’s second reading, “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Our lives are hidden with Christ, and that means that at times we may come to see many parts of our lives as empty tombs as well. As we strive to live and love as Christ lived and loved, we too will have to die in various ways to our own selfishness and to this world. But it is not merely that God forgives sin, conquers death, and leaves us in peace. Rather, the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ is a love that constantly breathes new life and makes all things new. Sometimes it may seem that there is nothing in the tomb…but it is precisely from nothing that God first created the heavens and the earth in Genesis…and it is from the Empty Tomb that God begins his new creation after the Sabbath rest on this new day that the Lord has made! May each of us carry the joy of Easter in our hearts; may we, as these other disciples, run to the tomb, embrace the reality of the Resurrection, and proclaim the Good News with our words, our lives, and our whole being: Jesus Christ is risen, He is truly risen, alleluia, alleluia!
In Christ, Our Risen King,
Fr. David
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