The Tomb is Empty: Christ is Risen!

Christ is Risen!

These three profound words are the source of all Christian belief. Everything we need to know about God is encapsulated in the faithful declaration. The devil’s grip has been broken, and we have been emancipated from the hopelessness of the false promises of the prince of darkness.

No longer are we relegated to the position of slaves, for Christ’s resurrection has changed our destiny from being estranged from our God to becoming his friends.  For the sake of suffering humanity, Jesus came down from heaven and clothed himself in that humanity through the Virgin’s womb and became man.  He took on a body capable of suffering and being sinless, and accepted the pain of the fallen world upon himself. He would triumph over the disease that plagues the human soul and body, which were nailed to the cross with him.  

His divine Spirit, incapable of dying, rose from the dead along with his glorified body, and dealt the destroyer of man a final and fatal blow. The death and resurrection of the Lord ransomed us from the servitude of the world, enabling our bodies and souls also to be incapable of death. So great is this gift, for through Christ we have been recreated, and like him, might never see eternal death.  

In God’s infinite wisdom, he chose Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James, to be the first to experience the resurrection. The next day, they saw the large stone move away when they came to the tomb where Jesus had been buried. When they entered the tomb, the body of Jesus was gone. Two men in dazzling clothes appeared to them and questioned why they were seeking the living among the dead. He is not here and has risen from the dead.

They quickly ran to inform the eleven, and Mary Magdalene still did not understand that Jesus would suffer, die, and be raised on the third day.  Peter and John ran to the tomb and saw that the burial clothes were off to the side, but the tomb was empty. John, who outran Peter, saw and believed but did not yet understand the immensity of the resurrection.

As God’s plan of salvation was revealed to his people through the empty tomb, he chose these three people to be the first to witness the ultimate destruction and death. Although different in their experiences with Jesus before the resurrection, all three shared one thing: They all loved Jesus. When all but one of Jesus’ disciples scattered, during his crucifixion, it was Mary Magdalene, along with Jesus’ mother and John, who stood under the cross. St. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved, and was tasked to take his Mother into his care. He also loved Jesus deeply.

Even though St. Peter denied him three times before his death, Jesus, after his resurrection, asked him three times in a type of absolution whether he loved him. When asked a third time, St. Peter became sad and told Jesus, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

We will all be faced with the empty tomb at some point in our lives. Eyewitness accounts of the resurrection will no longer suffice for us to believe. It is a process by which we first learn that Jesus was raised from the dead. Like the first witnesses, we do not see his glorified body immediately, for the concept must first envelope our consciousness.

Reflecting on God’s great love for us by sending his Son to die and rise offers us the opportunity to engage in a love relationship. As St. John so eloquently remarks in his first letter, we love God because he has first loved us.  And once we have loved God with all our being, the empty tomb, far from being rooted in belief, comes alive and true.

St. John continues, “In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.”

No fear in love means the tomb must be empty for Jesus and all who love him and keep his commandments. What we celebrate today is not just the empty tomb, but the reality that God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. When one remains in God, our tombs will be emptied too.

Oh God, help us love you and our neighbor more perfectly and follow your only Son into Paradise.  

Christ is Risen, Alleluia