Last night, during the Easter Vigil, we heard this question, posed by the two angels to the women at the empty tomb. In the answer given: “He is not here, but has risen from the dead” we have the foundation of our Easter hope.  Christ is risen, just as he has promised.  Because Christ is risen, we share in his Resurrection, we can live in hope.  The words from the Epistle today, taken from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, remind us of this most powerfully:

If you have been raised up to new life in Christ, you must seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand.  Set your minds on what is of God, for you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God, sharing in his glory.

What does this mean, concretely?  To die with Christ, to rise with Christ, to live in and with Christ, to be a member of his crucified and risen Body, to share in his glory?  The suffering, broken body of Christ, as Pope Francis has reminded us, in word and gesture, throughout this Holy Week, is all around us.  As the Church, we share in that brokenness. But we also share in the promise of renewal, of restoration, of rebirth: of Resurrection.

We who live in a modern, secular, skeptical world may well suppose that it was easier for those first followers of Jesus to immediately believe in this outrageous claim: that the one whom they had seen betrayed, arrested, cruelly tortured, publicly humiliated, nailed to a cross, and who died an agonizing death has indeed risen from his tomb.  But was it? 

Earlier this week, I saw a film entitled “Risen”, which I most heartily recommend.  Joseph Fiennes plays the role of Clavius, a Roman tribune whom Pilate assigns to ensure that after the Crucifixion, the tomb of Jesus is sealed and adequately guarded.  Then, when the tomb is mysteriously found empty on the third day, Pilate orders to head the investigation into finding the missing corpse.  Although much of the first half of the film plays out as a cross between CSI: Jerusalem and Law and Order: Palestine, it is actually a fascinating account of how someone who is initially skeptical, yet passionately attached to unearthing the truth about a matter, can gradually move toward a position of faith. Though a world-weary, ambitious tribune, with an obvious desire to please Pilate and his Roman superiors, as Clavius interviews various people from Jesus’ life, he begins to realize that those with vested interests in covering up the missing body of the Nazarene are less credible and consistent in their testimony, than those who claim to have seen him alive.  (To know how it turns out, you’ll have to see the movie!)

That’s fine for fictional Roman centurions.  But what about us?  It’s Easter Sunday, it’s the first long weekend in spring.  We could be somewhere else today. (Well maybe you could – I sort of have to be here. It’s in my contract!) No one would think any less of you if you had merely gone out to brunch or slept in this morning!  But you have chosen to be here.  You are here because, however tentative your faith, however strong, you wanted to come and celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, the promise of life triumphant over death, love over evil, hope over despair.  As one of my favourite authors, Fr. Jim Martin puts it:

As Christians, we wait in hope.  Hope is an active waiting; it knows that, even in the worst of situations, even in the darkest times, God is powerfully at work. Even if we can’t see it clearly right now. The disciples’ fear after Good Friday was understandable.  But we, who know how the story turned out, who know that Jesus rose from the dead, who know that God is with us, who know that nothing will be impossible for God, are called to wait in faithful hope. We are called to be on the lookout for the signs of new life right around the corner.  Because change is always possible, because renewal is always waiting, and because hope is never dead.

The three Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – all  report the Easter story in more or less the same way: women disciples arriving at the now-empty Tomb; angels announcing that Jesus is not there, that he has been raised from death; the women sent off to report the good news to the apostles.  The initial reaction of the Apostles is disbelief: they treat the women’s report as an “idle tale”.  In the version of John, which we have just heard, Mary Magdalene finds the stone rolled away, and runs to tell Peter and John.  They go and find the empty tomb; John believes, Peter is not sure, and they go home. Like our friend Clavius, they know that the tomb is empty, but have not yet experienced the Resurrection.  They are still in Holy Saturday.  Easter has not yet arrived for them.  

This strikes me as realistic.  It probably took some time for Jesus’ disciples to deal with the grief, anguish, and guilt they felt in connection to the events surrounding Jesus’ passion and death, before they could fully believe in his Resurrection.  It was Mary Magdalene who returned to the tomb, who met Jesus: who heard him call her by her name.  It was she who was sent as an “apostle” to the apostles, to share the full Good News: not just “the tomb is empty”, but “I have seen the Lord”!

In his sublime sonnet Easter Dawn, poet Malcolm Guite beautifully expresses Mary’s gradual awakening to her risen Lord and Teacher:

He blesses every love which weeps and grieves

And now he blesses hers who stood and wept

And would not be consoled, or leave her love’s

Last touching place, but watched as low light crept

Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs

A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.

She turns, but cannot focus through her tears,

Or recognise the Gardener standing there.

She hardly hears his gentle question ‘Why,

Why are you weeping?’, or sees the play of light

That brightens as she chokes out her reply

‘They took my love away, my day is night’

And then she hears her name, she hears Love say

The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.

 

How hard must it have been for Mary Magdalene and the other women to have their experience of the Resurrection dismissed as an “idle tale,” a hysterical fantasy, as “too good to be true”! 

Luckily for us, those women did not give up.  They overcame their fears and refused to be silenced by the disbelief of their fellow disciples. They continued to bear witness to this Good News.  Eventually, the other disciples met and saw and touched the risen Jesus themselves. 

Word began to spread.  People came to believe, from personal experience or by believing the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, the Good News signified by this empty Tomb: that Jesus was alive.   

The rest, as they say, is history. Jesus ascended to his Father and sent forth the promised Holy Spirit to these timid and frightened disciples. From this Pentecost experience, the Church was born.  No longer hiding away in upper rooms behind locked doors, Jesus’ disciples were empowered to speak, and speak they did! With confidence and conviction, they proclaimed God's  love, the healing power of forgiveness and mercy offered in Christ.  Everywhere they went, they spread the message of Jesus’ life, death and Resurrection.  They were hope-filled people spreading a message of hope, and faith. And they bore witness to that faith and hope by concrete gestures of love, especially to the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized, the forgotten. 

That message has come down to us.  On this Easter Sunday, we receive it as sacred trust, as source of joy, as call to ongoing conversion and transformation, as Good News to be lived and shared.  Listen to these words of hope spoken by Pope Francis in his first Easter homily three years ago:

Jesus no longer belongs to the past, but lives in the present and is projected towards the future; he is the everlasting “today” of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples and all of us: as victory over sin, evil and death, over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. This message is meant for me and for you, dear sister, dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness… and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!

Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life! If up till now you have kept him at a distance, step forward. He will receive you with open arms. If you have been indifferent, take a risk: you won’t be disappointed. If following him seems difficult, don’t be afraid, trust him, be confident that he is close to you, he is with you and he will give you the peace you are looking for and the strength to live as he would have you do.

In a few moments, we will renew the promises of our baptism.  In a secular world which treats faith as marginal, irrelevant and even ridiculous, we will accept the call to live as an Easter People, baptized into the death of Jesus, sharing in his Risen Life. We will go forth as witnesses to the Resurrection, spreading the good news not only that Jesus is risen, but that in the Risen Christ, we have all received the promise of life: abundant life here below, eternal life in the world to come. 

My prayer for us today is that the Resurrection of Christ be for each of us not simply a doctrine, a “thing about God” in which we intellectually believe, but a real experience of new life to which we can joyfully and convincingly bear witness. Easter celebrates the triumph of love: unconditional, mind-blowing, death-defying, life-giving love, the love of God, made visible to us in Jesus Christ.  May each of us know the depth of this love. May we become Spirit-filled witnesses to its power to transform our broken world. 

For Christ is risen! Alleluia!  Truly, he is risen! Alleluia!