EASTER SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD
20 APRIL 2025
Saint
John says that it is dark when Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb. He not only describes the darkness of the
early morning of the first day of the week.
He is also talking about the darkness which Mary Magdalene herself
brings with her. She is grieving in a
very dark way at the death of Jesus, her beloved mentor. When she arrives, she sees that the stone has
been removed from the tomb. She reacts
by running to Simon Peter and the other disciples whom Jesus loved. She tells them that someone had taken his
body from the tomb, and she does not know where they put him. Simon Peter and the beloved disciple react by
running to the tomb themselves. When
they arrive, they recognize that the tomb is empty, and that the grave clothes
are folded and the cloth that had covered his head is rolled up in a separate
place. The beloved disciple allows Simon
Peter to enter first. He does not know
what to make of it.
The beloved
disciple sees and believes that something extraordinary has happened. With Mary Magdalene, he had been present when
the Lord died on the cross. He had been
part of his burial. However, Simon Peter
had not been present at the crucifixion and burial. Probably, he is still wallowing in deep pain
and regret for his three-time denial that he knew Jesus when we was warming
himself by the fire in the courtyard of the high priest.
Later, all
three would remember the Scriptures to allow them to move from recognition to a
deep and abiding faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That happens to Mary Magdalene when the risen
Christ will reveal himself to her later in the day, after she thought that he
was the gardener. That will happen to
Peter and the other disciples when Jesus will break though the locked doors of
the upper room that evening as the risen Lord.
Peter’s belief in the resurrection of the Lord is evident in his words
which we heard in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Not only has he encountered the risen Lord in
the upper room, but the risen Lord has forgiven and healed his denials by
asking three times if Peter loves him when he appears to Peter and the other
disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
On Easter
Sunday, we come to the empty tomb again.
In our busy and hectic lives, we do a lot of running, just as those three
characters are running in today’s Gospel.
Each of us comes to Easter Sunday with whatever is happening in our
lives. Some of you come today having
lost a loved one in death. You come with
heavy hearts and profound grief. Some of
you have faced job losses and the danger of economic havoc. Others come burdened by physical illness and
pain. To be honest, all of us come to
Easter Sunday worried about the political divisions that bring the anger and
disputes and a dreadful uncertainty about the future of our country.
Easter
Sunday challenges us to deepen our faith in the Mystery of the resurrection, as
those three characters in today’s Gospel did.
We begin by reacting. After celebrating
the Liturgies of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, we react to the fact that the
Lord’s body is not in the tomb. We can
easily say, “Jesus is not here, he is risen.”
Then we run back into our busy lives.
Instead, we need to take time to recognize that the power of the Lord’s
resurrection can become a more profound part of our lives. That is whey we celebrate the Season of
Easter for fifty days. When we gather to
hear the Word of God and remember the Scriptures in these next Sundays of the
Easter Season, we can reflect more deeply on the truth we recognize today. Death and sin and the horrors of this world
do not have the last word. We can
experience a little bit of the Lord’s rising every time we deliberately enter
into his dying. Not only do each of
those deaths give us a share in his rising, but the final answer at the end of
the world and the end of our lives is not death. It is life, and an eternal sharing in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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