The Empty Tomb

Homily for Easter Sunday - 2021

The details that appear in the Gospel of St. John surrounding the Resurrection are slightly different than those we read in the synoptic Gospels. Taking our cue from a book entitled “Let John be John,” the differences are probably important.

For instance, John tells us that it was still dark when Mary Magdalen came to the tomb to perform the burial rites that had to be rushed when Jesus was buried. We know from previous episodes in John’s Gospel that darkness means a level of unbelief. Clearly, Mary is not expecting the Resurrection; she comes to mourn the death of Jesus. When she discovers that the tomb is empty, her first though is that the body of Jesus has been stolen. She returns to the disciples and tells them, “We don’t know where they put him.”

John then tells us a story of two disciples arriving at the tomb, finding it just as Mary had described. While Peter seems to not understand, the Beloved Disciple saw and believed. The Beloved Disciple understands what the others will come to know when the risen Christ appears to them: Jesus is risen. The burial cloths that were left behind are of no need to one who has conquered death.

As the story unfolds over the next few days and as Jesus appears to Mary Magdalen and other disciples, they will come to understand and believe just as the Beloved Disciple who believed without seeing Jesus. The Resurrection story becomes the cornerstone of their faith and the event which explained all that they had heard from the mouth of Jesus while he was living. They will take up the commission that Jesus gave them to preach the forgiveness of sins to the entire world.

This is exactly what Peter is doing in the first reading that we heard this morning from the Acts of the Apostles. He is standing in the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, preaching the Good News of Jesus to Gentiles. We can tell from the content of his preaching that he has reinterpreted everything he had experienced with Jesus, including the preaching of John the Baptist, his baptism in the Jordan River, and all the healing miracles. All of this had led up to his crucifixion at the hands of the Jewish elders in concert with the Roman governor. However, what they originally thought of as Jesus’ defeat now was viewed as his victory. His eyes have been opened to the mysteries that the prophets of Israel had revealed in their various oracles. He had come to recognize that God had intervened in human history, a history that is usually written by the victor but is now written by the vanquished.

St. Paul reminds us that Jesus is our Paschal Lamb who has been sacrificed for us. This imagery, reminiscent of the first Passover, indicates that the shedding of Jesus’ blood has redeemed us. Paul calls us to live in newness of life, putting aside our old ways and embracing the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

From that first Easter moment, the Church began to grow. This is the core of our Christian faith. It is the Risen Lord who gathers us together around his table to listen to the sacred stories about our faith, and then he gives himself to us in the form of bread and wine, as he did with his disciples on the night before he died. We share in the life of the risen Christ now, as Cornelius and his family did, as Paul and the Corinthians did; and, until Christ comes again, as all who come after us will. God be praised for this gift of salvation to the world.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator