ALLELUIA! The Lord is risen! The liturgy cannot say this enough. Surely, after fifty days of this we will get the message, exactly how profound it is that the Lord is risen.
Today’s gospel is enigmatic: an empty tomb, and confusing evidence identifying what happened to make it empty. It was not a tomb robbery. But what then happened? The disciples are stunned and quizzical. Are we? Our position is viewing things after the event; we can see the whole event for what it is. But, like the disciples, we cannot know beforehand the wonders or dangers that await us. Thus, we would probably have acted just like the disciples who are trying to understand what is going on.
The resurrection was a surprise, an out-of-the-ordinary shock, an incredulous joy. The Scriptures had not prepared them for this. The concept of Messiah was someone who would conquer the enemy, clear Israel of foreign oppression, and cleanse the temple worship. A dead Messiah was already a clear indication that this fellow was a fraud. This, of course, is the conclusion the religious leaders derived at the foot of the cross. They never expected God to act in historical time in a totally new way. But God did! And because of this the disciples strove to find ways to articulate the interpretation of the new criteria of the legitimate Messiah of God: crucified (oh my!) and risen (my, oh my!). We inherit these new Scriptures (the gospels) upon which our faith is based.
Friends, let us not superficially skate through Easter season, thinking that we already know all about the resurrection and the kingdom of God that it ushers in. One must always hold the cross next to the resurrection. From the cross we learn how the power of God is quite different from that of the world. From the cross we learn how easy and often we humans employ violence and death to answer a need or cope with a situation; in contemporary conditions, death from war still persists (including the siphoning off of resources for social goods to the war effort), but also deadening our senses with drugs or alcohol overuse, escape through television or sex, or any of a number of distractions (e.g., too much shopping) in an effort to dull our pain or the challenge before us. The cross was a silent point of God, but not a powerless instance. Rather, God dealt with the human device of killing and brought salvation out of it …through the resurrection. How does God continue this salvation of us from deadly courses through the action of the Holy Spirit in and through the community of disciples?
Easter season places before us liturgically a way of pondering God’s activity. We hear about baptism (“born from above”; What’s that?), Eucharist (“met him in the breaking of the bread”; how now?), the images of the shepherd and the vine (what is our connection to Christ?), and Jesus’ priestly prayer to the Father on our behalf. Keep praying. Keep meditating. Keep giving grateful alms…as we discover the mystery of peace and joy in such sacrifice. The cross of sacrifice is transformed into the joy of Divinely-led resurrected life. Let this be a year of discovery and insight
