Easter Sunday (April 8th  2012)   

Gospel: Mark 16:1-8

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

Questions raised by this passage from the Gospel

1 The Gospel tells us that the risen Lord can be found in Galilee. What represents Galilee for us today?

2. The risen Lord has vanished from the tomb. How can the disciples find him again? By staying at the tomb, or by following him? What does it mean to follow him?

3. How can I be sure that the Lord is truly risen? By looking at an empty tomb, or by encountering the Lord in my mission, my vocation?

4. In what ways have I already encountered the Lord in my life? Can this help me discern what his mission for me consists in?

"We must learn how to meet Jesus, we must discover how to follow his tracks. The risen Lord is met in mission; he is met in Galilee, he is met in the way that we are called, and when we are faithful to that call. The Lord is truly risen. How can we be sure of this? By entering into our mission. By faithfully following our vocation. This is where we find the Lord alive. This is where we find him in power."

The stone that weighs on us and prevents us from achieving the fullness of life has already been rolled away!

This year we read the most ancient proclamation of Easter in the sparse and enigmatic form given to it by the Gospel of Matthew. The women go with aromatic oils to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. This is an act of love towards a dead one, and it seems to be the last sad chapter of a story that ended in bitterness and death. They go at daybreak, expecting to be confronted with a problem to be resolved. A heavy stone had been placed at the tomb and they ask themselves who will remove it. But when they arrive, they find that the problem has already been resolved: the stone has been laid back and the women have an open door in front of them.

With the Lord Jesus, the tomb takes on a new meaning. A tomb is usually something that represents stark finality. The expression "dead and buried" is used to refer to situations that are hopeless or definitively ended. But a tomb that is empty is no longer a tomb in the normal sense of the word. It is no longer a place of arrival but has become a place of departure. This is the surprising discovery that awaits the women on Sunday morning. The redemptive mission of Jesus transforms death into a point of departure, not the ultimate destination of human existence. The stone that seals the tomb represents that which is not humanly resolvable. Who can remove the stone from the tomb of human existence? Who can save humanity from its desperation, emptiness and finality?

It is important to recognize that the stone has already been rolled back for all of us. Despite its great size, the great slab that weighs on the human person and prevents him from obtaining the fullness of life has already been removed by someone else.

Resurrection makes us fearful because it challenges us to abandon the self-preserving practices by which we "anoint" our old way of life.

The women go to the tomb and do not find the dead one, but someone else, a youth, someone who has life in abundance. He is dressed in a white baptismal robe. The women are terrified, but we should not be surprised by this. Even great beauty can make us fearful. Even the good news of the Resurrection can scare us. We attach ourselves tenaciously to our old way of life. Who is able to allow himself to be carried along completely by the new existence bestowed by the Lord? Who is able to abandon the daily strategies of self-preservation within which we entomb ourselves?

The Gospel begins with the call of the disciples in Galilee and finishes with an exhortation to return to Galilee to find the Risen Lord.

This shining, life-filled youth appears in the saddest and most macabre of places, and has a message: "Do not be afraid! You are searching for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is risen and is no longer here. Tell the disciples, especially Peter, that he is going ahead of you to Galilee". The Gospel began with the call of the disciples in Galilee, and it ends with the unresolved search for Jesus who is not in the expected place and will instead meet them again in Galilee.

Jesus is not in the expected place, and in fact has gone to an entirely different region altogether. The women are traumatized. Something is not right here! A man who has been crucified, tortured in a barbaric way, humiliated, stripped of his very existence, has left the tomb? He is on the move and we are expected to follow him? And in fact this is the very point that the Gospel wishes to make! Jesus has gone ahead and if we are ever to find him again then we must follow him. This was the experience of the early church and it is what Easter continues to proclaim today. The tomb of Jesus is not a place to linger but a place that we pass through as we pursue the Risen Lord.

How can we find the risen Lord? By accepting our mission.

Where must we go to find Jesus? Where can we attain a complete experience of the resurrection? Through following him. By going where he leads. Galilee was the place where the disciples were called. The women who went to anoint Jesus had come from Galilee. They followed him and now they are asked to return to the place where they were called. Peter and the disciples must go to the initial departure point of their mission, the place of their vocation. This is how the Gospel of Mark ended in its original form, with a new beginning. And, you know, it is a good thing that it does not simply end by stating that he is risen, but by telling us where we must go to meet him again. And the Gospel does even more than this. It is better to be told how to meet somewhere than where to meet them. We must learn how to meet Jesus, we must discover how to follow his tracks. The risen Lord is met in mission; he is met in Galilee, he is met in the way that we are called, and when we are faithful to that call. The Lord is truly risen. How can we be sure of this? By entering into our mission. By faithfully following our vocation. This is where we find the Lord alive. This is where we find him in power.
This Easter let all of us launch ourselves towards Galilee, each to his own Galilee. Everyone has his own mission, his own way in which he has been called to be faithful. The Lord shows himself to be risen when we are on his heels. He wants all of us to have that personal experience of him that comes through living the particular mission that he entrusts to each of us.


How can I discern where my Galilee lies?
A small problem arises: What exactly is my mission? It is a grave issue if a Christian is not aware of his mission. It is a serious matter if we do not know where our Galilee lies, because in that case we do not know how to encounter the risen Lord. Being a Christian does not consist in the constant accumulation of sacraments. Christianity is not about reception, but is about activity. It is about journey, about going to Galilee, about following the Lord Jesus closely. If someone does not know where Galilee lies, then he must pray seriously about it. There is a Galilee for each of us and it is inextricably linked to the way in which God speaks to us personally. Galilee is where Jesus has already appeared in our lives, as in the case of the disciples. We must look at our existence and ask where the Lord is present in it. Where are the footsteps and traces of the Lord in my daily existence? To know where Jesus has gone, I must ask where he has already been in my life. It is there, most probably, that my Galilee lies.