Easter Day 2015: Experiencing resurrection
Jn 20:1-18
John gives us an existential and powerful story of the encounter between the risen Christ and the women who went to attend his dead body. He is not in the tomb as they expected. The giant stone is rolled aside, the tomb is empty. Contra the scene in Mark, Matthew and Luke, Mary is alone. The treatment of the body for burial was done by Nicodemus (Jn 19:39-40). Mary Magdalene is named as one of the few present at the crucifixion, along with the mother of Jesus. In mark when the women find the tomb empty they run away afraid and tell no one. Fortunate for us, John tells us that Mary Magdalene ran to tell Peter and the Beloved Disciple.
There follows a foot race between the two men. The two men reached the tomb, the beloved arrived first and looked in but did not go in, then Peter arrived and went in inspected the evidence. Only a glance at the linen folded neatly was all the evidence the beloved needed to know he had risen. THE BELOVED DISCIPLE SEES AND BELIEVES. He attests to the faith that says God’s love infiltrates everything, even death.
Only when Mary returns with Peter and the Beloved Disciple does she encounter the ‘gardener’ and hear him call her by name. The instant she heard the risen One say, “Mary” she knew! It may remind us of other verses in John’s gospel where the Lord is depicted as the good shepherd. The sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (Jn 10:3). The Good Shepherd knows his own. By what name does the Risen Christ call you?
Easter community should recognize here the admonition to know the names of every person it encounters. Speaking one’s name enfolds them in the community. The believing community united in the new life of the risen Christ speaks the names of those who cannot speak for themselves, bearing witness that God has a preferential option for the poor, recognizing that God knows and pays attention even to the least of these. This gives us confidence that our names are also known to God: we are not forgotten.
Mary Magdalene made the first Easter proclamation: I have seen the LORD.
Peter is our eyes in this scene. He sees the burial clothes but does not say or do anything in response. The empty tomb alone could be one piece of evidence to declare the LORD IS RISEN, but Peter, ever ready with words, does not say it. For Mark, the empty tomb is evidence of God’s power over death. In John, Peter and the beloved disciple merely go home after seeing the empty tomb.
The power of the story by John is that we the readers know who the gardener is: we wait anxiously to see what will lead Mary to recognize the risen Jesus. Mary Magdalene not only was first to encounter the risen Lord, she also is the first to proclaim it: I have seen the LORD.
Every Easter Day, we come hoping to experience the personal awakening like Mary’s. We run to the empty tomb on the word of a friend. We see it is empty. We still need to encounter the living risen LORD, for ourselves.
The first great philosophical question is: What is? The second, is: How do we know what is?” The first is a question about being; the second is about truth.
To get at the first question, I refer to a German Theologian, Paul Tillich who contributed much to contemporary religious understanding. Being religious meant asking passionately the questions of the meaning of our existence, being open to receiving answers that could be surprising and uncomfortable. Being concerned about one’s own being links us to all other beings. Tillich used the phrase “the ground of Being” as a way of discussing God and the “new being” for Christ. He said that religious institutions are emergency institutions made necessary by our forgetfulness of Being. To overcome our anxiety as we hurry from job to home to the next appointment, we begin to be estranged from the depth: the ground of Being.
We live in a time marked by technology, scientific knowledge, in which we claim to have control. Many of the driving forces of our society are horizontal, few are vertical. We get better and better, bigger and bigger, we consume and acquire more and more. We humans are right to claim to know more and to do transformative things with technology. What we may be tempted to do is to focus all our energy on the drive forward in the horizontal plane and ignore the depth/vertical plane.
To nurture the depth dimension requires letting go of something and becoming aware of himself/herself. Only if such moments are claimed can one experience the importance of this moment, here and now and ponder the meaning of life (in the present tense). But as long as transitory concerns override our attention to depth, no matter how interesting or valuable or important they may be, the voice of the ultimate concern cannot be heard. This is the depth dimension.
Mary Magdalene understood at a depth level even as she responded to him calling her by name. She turned to him and clung to his feet, but The Risen Christ has a date with his Father. Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples: “I have seen the Lord”.
Today you come to this holy place to touch and see, to feel the real presence of the Risen Christ, to renew your faith, to fill your deep inner longing with the love of the Risen Christ. So we do acclaim him LORD for HE IS RISEN, THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED, and ALLELUIA!