I remember my sadness, a few years ago, when a friend of mine who had been brought up in a Lutheran family in Germany, told me: “We were not a very religious family. We only went to church twice a year: on Christmas day and on Good Friday”. I felt so sad that someone could stop at the Cross without entering the joy of the Resurrection. For Jesus’ life and mission are not finished when He dies for us all on the Cross so as to redeem us.
This morning, we follow once more the pilgrimage of faith of the women. They are going to the tomb early on the first day of the week. The tomb is empty. The body of Jesus is no longer here. The linen cloths in which it was wrapped are neatly folded in their place. It cannot be a theft for no one would have left things so tidy. What does it mean? Did what happened to Lazarus happen to Jesus? Is He back among the living in order to continue His previous existence and ministry after a short interval of three days? Or is the tomb the sign of something different?
When the beloved disciple entered the tomb after Peter, the Evangelist tells us that “he saw and believed”. He had an intuition of the resurrection. He knew that Jesus was living. From his memories of Jesus’ words and on the basis of the prophecies of the Holy Scriptures, he made sense of the empty tomb.
For the empty tomb speaks of a reality which is totally new. Yes, the risen Lord is the same Jesus who was crucified. The wounds He received are still visible on His body. But His life is radically different. He has not been brought back to the ordinary routine. He is very mobile, always on His way, absent and suddenly present, present and impossible to hold or to possess. He is going to the Father. He is going to heaven where He belongs. There only will His mission be over. There only will all that He did, taught, and suffered attain its full meaning.
The empty tomb is the sign that Jesus’ journey is not finished with His death. He has entered life by His resurrection so as to lead us, too, into the divine life He shares with the Father and the Spirit.
We heard St Paul telling us: “you have been raised with Christ; you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory”. Christ’s death and His resurrection are ours. Through baptism, we have been plunged into the death of Christ so as to live a new life. In the Holy Eucharist, we are fed with the Bread of heaven, which gives us eternal life, a foretaste of the eternal banquet.
Moreover, St Peter explains that the Risen Lord “commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify, that he is the one ordained by God to judge the living and the dead.” The last act of Jesus’ mission will be the universal judgment at the end of time. Christ’s resurrection sets Him – and us – in the direction of the fullness of life, already begun sacramentally, and to be bestowed on us at the resurrection of the body and the final judgment.
The beloved disciple “saw and believed”. Only when he had seen the empty tomb could he understand fully the meaning of Christ’s death on the Cross. In the light of the resurrection, the Cross is manifested as God’s victory over sin and death. This manifestation is not the end, though, but the beginning of a new reality: the new world of the Resurrection. Jesus, risen from the dead, makes us already partakers of it through faith and the Sacraments. He will bring this new life to its fullness in the resurrection at the end of time.
Therefore, we leave the empty tomb with three things: joy, mission and responsibility.
First we feel a great joy for an unthinkable hope is opened to us and to all mankind. The divine life is the horizon of our human existence.
Second, we know what is our mission: we are sent to announce to the world the good news of the Resurrection, which is: our vocation to divine life. Every Christian is a missionary of the Risen Christ.
Finally, we acknowledge our responsibility: this present life is the time we have been given to prepare ourselves for entering into Divine Life. We shall be judged on the gifts we have received. Let us make good use of time. Let us celebrate Easter with immense gratitude, overwhelming hope, and a renewed commitment to Jesus’ new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Amen. Alleluia!