Homily for Easter Sunday 12 April 2009
One of the biggest challenges we have to cope with in celebrating the feast of Easter is the lack of surprise we experience when we hear the Gospel narrative on Easter morning. It is Easter day, the Gospel passage is taken from the twentieth chapter of the Gospel according to St John - and we know what is going to happen before we ever hear a word spoken. And that is a great pity. So let us try, by an exercise of the mind, to set the scene again and so try and understand what happened on that first Easter morning.
First of all let us remember that Jesus had been crucified. Because the God-man was truly human, as we are human, he knew by the exercise of his reason that the path he had taken, the words he had proclaimed, the signs he had wrought, could only have one end. He did not approach his crucifixion as a disagreeable task to be got through because all would be well when he rose from the dead - no, he approached his passion and death as the end of life as he knew it, for he did not know what would follow. And I, perhaps I might be allowed to say we, though we believe in the resurrection of the dead, approach our death in the same way - with considerable apprehension because we do not know precisely what will follow.
Then we must understand that Mary of Magdala did not come to the tomb just in case the body was still there but secretly expecting to find the empty tomb. No, she expected the body of Jesus to be in the tomb where she had seen it placed: crucifixion was a very definite, public way of killing another human being. John does not tell us why Mary came to the tomb but we may suppose that, at the very least, she came for the very human reason that she wanted to mourn the death of one whom she loved. But when she got to the tomb she saw the stone which sealed the entrance had been moved away. She did not immediately say, 'The Lord is risen from the dead', rather she went in great confusion to fetch Peter. John does not mention the fears that went through her mind but she knew she must seek help in determining what had happened and what must be done.
And Peter and the disciple the Lord loved do not say to Mary, 'The Lord has risen, alleluia, alleluia' - they cannot imagine what could have happened and so they make their way to the tomb to see whatever there is to be seen. They find the grave clothes lying on the ground and the cloth which had been placed around the Lord's head in a different place, by itself. They know that no-one in their right mind would completely unwrap a decaying corpse -l et us remember the comments of Martha at the raising of Lazarus, 'Lord, by now he will smell'. Only then do they remember the teaching of Jesus concerning the resurrection.
It is also worth noting that the passage we have just heard has been cut short. The text actually continues, 'The disciples then went back home'. Not, you might have thought, the most celebratory of conclusions - and you would be right, because the disciples still did not really understand what 'resurrection' meant. The prevailing mood in Jerusalem on the first Easter morning seems to have been one of surprise, confusion, and fear. Whilst there might have been some memory of a teaching about resurrection the disciples still had to encounter the Risen Lord; only then would they really understand that both his life and theirs had been transformed for ever.
Somehow I think that this story of confusion, surprise and fear is more credible for those of us who follow them some two millennia after the event. In the coming days we will read the accounts of the apperances of the Risen Lord recorded for us in each of the Gospel naratives and in the Acts of the Apostles. These began just after Peter and the beloved disciple left the tomb. We know that we cannot handle the flesh of the Lord like Thomas; we cannot eat with Jesus by the Sea of Galilee like Peter and the other apostles. It took time, as we would expect, for the Apostles, our fathers in faith, to understand what had happened. We have to live by faith but the evidence we have been given by believers who went before us is sound and convincing: the more so since they had to be shown what 'resurrection' meant.
But we have a second challenge to face this Easter morning. We can celebrate the fact of the resurrection of Jesus - but that is merely to commemorate an historical event, rather similar to celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar or the Battle of Hastings. We know that these anniversaries commemorate a matter of some importance but they are dead and gone, they have little impact on the way in which we pass our days. The resurrection of Jesus is an historical fact of a completely different order, for this event, if we believe it, means that Jesus is still alive, still active in the lives of believers. It means that we can still experience his presence and be changed by it. That is a real cause for our joy and our celebration. We rejoice because the Word of God is still alive and active penetrating into the depths of our being. We rejoice because the Risen Body and Blood of our Saviour is still present among us in the Holy Eucharist, changing you and me so that we become the Body of Christ alive and active in our world today. We rejoice because we can still see the Lord in our brothers and sisters, most especially in those who have received baptism - and so we can serve Jesus Christ in those around us, particularly in our needy brothers and sisters. We celebrate this morning because we are in a living communion with the Risen Lord: his victory over sin and death is the promise of our victory over sin and death. Our world has been transformed. Whatever is happening around us, however bleak the financial world may appear, however callous the behaviour of men and women towards each other, we remain men and women of hope. Because we are men and women of hope, believing in the possibility of a better world, we can act as a leaven in our society bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to men and women of our time, summoning them to live not for themselves but for others in fidelity to what the Lord has taught us.
Rt Rev Cuthbert Madden OSB, Abbot of Ampleforth