GOSPEL COMMENTARY JN 20: 1-9
While Easter Sunday brings images of light and renewed life,
Christ in golden glory, the pure sunshine of a spring morning, innumerable
flowers and songs of great joy, the Gospel reading for this highest feast sets
a rather different scene.
Rather than finding unbounded happiness, we find Mary Magdalene
about as distressed as a person can be, coming to the tomb of her Lord. The
Gospel tells us, poignantly, “It was still dark,” (Jn 20:1). The Easter sun has
not yet risen, and in the gloom that has carried over from Good Friday, Mary
sees the empty tomb not as a sign of hope and victory, but as a sign that the
worst has happened. Not only has Jesus been betrayed and murdered, now his body
has been stolen. We can almost hear the tears in her voice as she says to Peter
and John, “They have taken the Lord … and we don’t know where they put him” (Jn
20: 2).
But in fact — though it is dark, and though the friends of Jesus
do not yet understand — the victory has already been won. The Lord is only gone
because he is risen. He has disappeared because he is on the move. Eventually
he will show himself to the disciples, so that they can share in the victory he
has already won, but for now, they must find a way to hope and to trust that
despite appearances, the Lord is in command. They will indeed see him, and
recognize that he is the master over death, the victor over sin, the king of
the eternal realm. The darkness of the first Easter morning will give way to
the light that gives the disciples heroic courage for witness — even though at
the moment, the sign of victory looks for all the world like a sign of defeat.
Our experience of Easter, and of the joy of the resurrection, can
follow this same pattern. We are used to the logic of the world, the logic of
original sin, the logic of impermanence and imperfection, the logic of death
after every life; but we are not used to the logic of Easter. We have a more
constant experience of the law of nature than of the law of resurrection.
Looking at the painful and evil things of the world, we can wonder where the
victory is that Christ is supposed to have won, and it can seem very much like
it is still dark. But the light shines, even if we cannot see it. Christ lives
and moves, unconquered and invincible, even if we cannot yet perceive him. Just
as he eventually showed himself to Mary Magdalene, he will show himself to us
when it is time. Then our hope will become certainty, our faith, sight and our
love will finally hold what it has always sought. There may be a tension now
between the ever-present reality of Good Friday and the new and unfamiliar
truth of Easter Sunday, but Christ has risen indeed, and the tension will only
resolve in the direction of life.
We must, during this season of Easter, take instruction from the
Lord, along with the other disciples, and learn this new reality of mighty joy,
even in the midst of the world’s sorrow. We must have the courage to follow the
living Lord into a new life, leaving the death of sin behind, and clothing
ourselves in the manners of the kingdom of heaven, which stands newly opened
for us. For that life, the life that cannot die, is our true life from now on.
Fr. Rampino is parochial vicar of Blessed Sacrament
Church in Alexandria.