Easter Sunday
Reflection: Resurrection more than a belief
By SISTER MARY McGLONE
“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”
We recite this phrase, or one of its variants, as habitually as we make the exceedingly bold statement that what we are about to do, we do, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
What real difference do those declarations make in our daily lives?
To discern that, let’s look at Mary Magdalene’s experience gradually internalizing the reality of the resurrection.
Today’s Gospel, an excerpt from John 20:1-18, shows that the resurrection might have been as hard to comprehend as was the cross. Setting the scene for humanity’s first encounter with the Risen Christ, this passage seems to depict as much confusion as faith. John can help us walk with Mary through all that happened as she came to unanticipated faith.
John tells us that Mary set out in the dark. In this Gospel, that has more to do with the texture of the times than the movement of sun and stars. Who on Earth could have been sadder than she? She had witnessed how a violent, fanatical mob egged on by civil and religious leaders tried to definitively eliminate God’s offer of love in Jesus. Surely, she shared in the Father’s grief as she kept watch through every moment of torture, mocking and the soldiers’ blind obedience that filled the hours from the end of their supper until Jesus’ demise.
Jesus’ death affected Mary much like it affected Jesus; he died into the unknown and she had lost everything, including her reputation, to be part of the reign of God that Jesus heralded and made present. After the cross, Mary had nothing left, and the empty tomb made that physically real. Now there was nobody: No body, no sense of the presence of God, no hope, only a hole in her soul.
Living in that tragic state, Mary assumed that Jesus’ body had been stolen and ran to bring the news to Peter and the other disciple. According to John’s Gospel, the three ran back to the tomb. When the men went in, they accepted the truth of Mary’s mindboggling report. This part of the story ends with the paradoxical statement that one of the disciples “saw and believed,” although “they did not yet understand,” and went home.
Mary, still dwelling in darkness, remained at the tomb. When angels asked why she wept, she retold the bad news of the stolen body. Then someone asked the question Jesus had posed to his first disciples as well as to the thugs who arrested him: “Whom do you seek?” (John 1:38, 18:7).
Convinced in her desolation, she missed the question and asked, “Did you take him?” When he spoke her name, she realized that she was in the real and transformed presence of her Lord. As she rejoiced in what she did not understand, Jesus did what he had done with the disciples at the Transfiguration and explained that this moment of glory was not the end, but a beginning. He commissioned her to proclaim the now-complete Gospel, the undreamed-of truth that evil was vanquished and now was the time to bring that Good News to the world.
In our reading from Acts, Peter describes his experience of the Risen Christ. For Peter, the resurrection signaled the forgiveness of sin: the radical and freeing truth that evil had no ultimate or lethal power. Paul taught about the effects of that: “You have been raised with Christ, let that alone be your guiding star.” Peter and Paul proclaimed that an absolutely new kind of life was thriving in the world.
Mary and the others experienced the cost of resurrection before they comprehended its grace. They could authentically proclaim the living Christ because, with him, they had suffered the power of evil and witnessed its demise. The Easter proclamation has its deepest meaning for those who have confronted the demonic, hoped against hope, and been given an intimation of evil’s downfall and the transformations that began with Christ’s victory.
Knowing what she did, Mary might well suggest that our Easter prayer be something like this: “Grant us the grace and patient courage to understand what we proclaim and the faithfulness to see it through.”
Faith in Christ’s resurrection is not a dogma, but a life-orientation that flows from the conviction that Christ’s new life is ours as well. The resurrection is not a mystery to be clung to, but a practice to develop in ever new and deeper ways. As we live into it, our lives will proclaim Christ’s presence and we can dare to proceed in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This will make all the difference in the world.
First Reading
(Acts 10: 34a, 37-43)
Peter proceeded to speak and said:
“You know what has happened all over Judea,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him.
We are witnesses of all that he did
both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.
This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,
not to all the people, but to us,
the witnesses chosen by God in advance,
who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
He commissioned us to preach to the people
and testify that he is the one appointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead.
To him all the prophets bear witness,
that everyone who believes in him
will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Responsorial Psalm
(Psalm 118 1-2, 16-17, 22-23)
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Let the house of Israel say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
“The right hand of the LORD has struck with power;
the right hand of the LORD is exalted.
I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.”
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
Second Reading
(Colossians 3: 1-4)
Brothers and sisters:
If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
OR
(I Corinthians 5: 6b-8)
Brothers and sisters:
Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?
Clear out the old yeast,
so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,
inasmuch as you are unleavened.
For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us celebrate the feast,
not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Sequence: Victimae paschali laudes
Christians, to the Paschal Victim
Offer your thankful praises!
A Lamb the sheep redeems;
Christ, who only is sinless,
Reconciles sinners to the Father.
Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous:
The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.
Speak, Mary, declaring
What you saw, wayfaring.
“The tomb of Christ, who is living,
The glory of Jesus’ resurrection;
Bright angels attesting,
The shroud and napkin resting.
Yes, Christ my hope is arisen;
to Galilee he goes before you.”
Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining.
Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!
Amen. Alleluia.
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.