April 21^st 2019.  Easter Sunday

GOSPEL   John 20: 1-9

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL   John 20:1-9

On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The passage from the Gospel for Sunday’s Mass doesn’t mention an apparition of Jesus. Instead we have an empty tomb and the search for a missing body. Wouldn’t it have been better if we had read of an appearance of the risen Lord? But the passage is important for us because it shows us the very moment in which the bewilderment of the disciples turns into faith in the risen Lord. We see how the comprehension of what they had not previously understood finally dawns on them. The fact is that none of us "understands" the way God chooses for us, his solution to things. God does not save us in the way that we expect him to. Christian life is based on the power of a God who resolves our questions, not with mathematical logic, but according to an Easter strategy. This is the sort of strategy that opens a way through the Red Sea and makes a teenage boy defeat the giant Goliath. The Lord does not resolve the question of dying by avoiding death, but by passing through the middle. Someone once said that God does not save us from the night, but saves us in the night. Jesus does not protect us from problems, but transforms problems into meeting places with him. Problems, difficulties and tombs become wombs that generate new life and transform us into new creatures. This is what Easter of the Lord does.

The Gospel reading doesn’t mention an apparition of the Lord but only an empty tomb. Why?

The text of the Gospel for the day Mass on Easter Sunday is an eventful, restless and frustrating story, like the story of a search that ends in failure. We might be inclined to think that it would be more rewarding to read an account of an apparition of the risen Jesus - something which also happens immediately afterwards in John's own text - but the liturgy holds up for us instead the story of how Mary Magdalene finds the entrance to the tomb open and runs to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple. She assumes that the body has been stolen - a further offense to the Lord.  The two apostles run to see the empty tomb. John is faster and bends down to see, but remains on the threshold, waiting until Simon Peter other arrives. In the life of the disciples of Christ, nothing is ever done alone. Everything important is done together with someone else. You can be as sharp and brilliant as you want, but if you try to do things alone you are not a Church; you are yet another individualist. Our faith has substance only in fraternal communion, otherwise it is a form of deception.

The disciples discover that the Lord’s plan of salvation is not how we expect it to be

Then Simon Peter enters, and sees some sheets laid in one place and the shroud in another. The beloved disciple enters second, for it is fitting that Peter, the first of the apostles, should precede him.  John had stood earlier at the foot of the cross, but now, finally, he believes.  It is only now that the missing intuition sinks in: "They had not yet understood the Scripture, that is, that he had to rise from the dead". It is only here that the realization of what they had not previously understood finally arrives. No one "understands" the way God chooses for us, his solution to things. This text is imbued with the surprise that has dawned upon the disciples: God does not save us in the way that we expect him to. Christian life is based on the power of God who resolves our questions and our anxieties, not with mathematical logic, but according to an Easter strategy. This is the sort of strategy that opens a way through the sea, sends a breeze in the middle of the fire, makes a teenage David win against the giant Goliath. The Lord does not resolve the question of dying by avoiding death, but by passing through the middle. Someone once said that God does not save us from the night, but saves us in the night.

Jesus does not protect us from problems, but transforms problems into meeting places with him. Problems, difficulties, tombs become wombs that generate new life and transform us into new creatures.

And that is why we proclaim this text on Easter Sunday.  It shows us the bewilderment of the disciples in the face of the unexpected, and we need to open ourselves to this. For the Lord Jesus does not protect us from problems, but transforms problems into meeting places with Him. Tombs become starting points. Christ goes to heaven by way of the tomb. And the sheets remain there, useless, like the robes that the catechumen takes off before entering the waters of Baptism: they are old things that are no longer needed. With Christ we do not simply survive; we are resurrected. The life of those who follow the Lord is not an existence that seeks to avoid problems. Rather, every tribulation, every cross, every tomb can become a womb that generates new life. From these problems we emerge as new creatures that live life according to heaven. We finally leave the old man aside, like that folded shroud left in the tomb.