Easter Sunday A: March 31, 2024

The conclusion of the gospel reading from John in certainly inconclusive! It tells us of Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb to finish the hurried burial rites early in the morning; it was still dark. She found the tomb empty. What must her mood have been? Burdened with sorrow, grieving, filled with a sense of loss; trying to do one last thing for the Lord she has so recently and brutally lost. And, she finds the tomb empty. She must have panicked. Who could have broken in and taken the body? She runs to tell Peter and the disciple Jesus loved, and they come to the tomb and find the burial cloths, but no Jesus. At this point only the disciple whom Jesus love took in what had happened. Only he remember the promise of Jesus and believed that he had risen; his joy must have been immense.

But what of the others? Peter did not understand; he and Mary were confused, even fearful. In the next verse of this passage, not read today, all begins to be made clear. But even now, the others began one important journey: they began to hope. Hope. Hope has been described as that which gives the human being the “will to live.” Beyond what appears to be true, we will to live; in this case, the will to believe that what seems impossible could be true: Jesus has risen. Mary shows this when she stays behind in her puzzlement, only to hear her name, “Mary.” At that moment she knows the man she took to be the gardener is the Lord.

From this experience, begun in confusion and fear, true hope is born to us. It is electrifying news: Jesus has risen from the dead; death has lost its hold on us. And as we live with this reality comes the hope, then the knowledge, that we too will rise from the dead if only we follow his new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

We too can feel this confusion and fear even with our faith. It still takes hope to began to make real what Jesus is asking of us. It takes that other human quality: patience. It is in patience that we hope when all seems to go against what we believe. But we do not remain in the confusion and fear of Mary and Peter; rather, we come to the faith of the disciple Jesus loved: We see and believe. We receive the strength to begin to make genuine in real time what the love of Jesus is for us. We can be that love for one another. That love makes our hope in our resurrection possible to live out for others.