Belief, Faith, Proclamation
The Sabbath was over, and Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome, had the chance to properly prepare Jesus’s dead body, which could not be done beforehand. These women followed the custom of washing and anointing the body before it was laid to rest forever
The women knew there was a great stone covering Jesus’ tomb, but the daunting task did not inhibit their desire to respectfully and adequately prepare Jesus’ body. We can only imagine what was going through their minds and the circumstances surrounding the ignominious outcome of the death of their friend and the once-thought man who would be the one to save Israel.
Why did they go in the first place, knowing that an impenetrable physical object might thwart their journey and efforts? Isn’t it reasonable to think they were wasting their time with only hope that someone might be there to roll the stone away? And yet, they still went with no assurances other than their internal convictions that they should go.
The women were lured to the tomb, first by the obligatory ritual of honoring a dead body and secondly by their inclination. The inclination was not an emotional feeling but an urging from God through his grace to go to the tomb, even though there were many reasons not to. God’s plan of salvation has always included human beings aided by his grace as witnesses and agents working alongside him to make his plan known to the world.
The Blessed Mother was given God’s grace when she willingly became the Mother of God, even though the angel’s message was preposterous on its face. St. Joseph believed what the angels told him in dreams to take the Blessed Virgin as his wife and protect her and Jesus from harm.
St. John the Baptist heralded the coming of the Messiah by preaching repentance and the message of a greater one than he will come, one whose sandal strap John was unworthy to untie
The same grace and outpouring of love from God filled Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, enabling them to be the first ones to witness Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. For whatever reason, Jesus chose these two women, and they accepted his grace even though they did not remotely comprehend Jesus’ triumph over death on their way to his tomb. No human being had ever experienced anything happening after physical death but decay, let alone someone rising from the dead.
It is the same grace that all Christians who believe have experienced. The unspoken movement in the heart and soul moves you to a place contrary to what you see and hear in the world and to believe in something that cannot be proven empirically. With God’s grace, the recipient knows the inclinations are moments when the Truth is embraced and must be followed.
Mary Magdalene and Mary, expecting to see a corpse, entered the tomb and saw a young man dressed in white instead. He announced that Jesus was no longer in the realm of the dead but was alive and risen! Perhaps the young man was an angel because he, like other angels, is a messenger of divine news, and proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus is definitely a divine proclamation.
Upon seeing the young man, the women are amazed, and the young man in white immediately tells them, “Do not be amazed.” The one you seek has been raised! In other words, to say, “Do not be amazed,” confirms all that was told to them before his death, that he would suffer and die and be raised on the third day. These two women did the same as their holy predecessors, who listened to God and worked with his grace. Their belief has turned into faith, and their example leads others to believe and have the same lifelong certainty that Christ has risen.
St. Paul reminds us, “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” What is hoped for is life, not death. We shrink away from death, and rightfully so, for it is alien to our very constitutions. Nothing touches our existential desire for life more than Jesus, raised from the dead in all his glory. What is hoped for and not seen is the gift of a share in his resurrection. St. Paul reminds us again, “For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life.”
Finally, the young man instructs the women to go and tell his disciples and Peter that the Lord has risen from the dead. Here again, an important point for all Christians is that belief and faith in the Resurrected Lord is not an individual experience but demands a proclamation of the Truth that death is finally destroyed.
Belief, faith, and proclamation are the hallmarks of the people of God who have experienced Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. Not as eyewitnesses, but through faith, we are witnesses nonetheless—witnesses to the resurrection and the unparalleled grace given to us.
Our loud cries, Jesus is Risen, Alleluia is a verbal expression of the Resurrection, which has fundamentally changed our lives, hoping that someday we will join the angels and saints for all eternity, praising the glory of God and his gift of his only Son.
Happy Easter.