Dear Parish Family,
Whatever Jesus had said to his followers about his death and resurrection—they were simply not prepared for either reality. Mark says that most of them scattered after the arrest and were not around for the crucifixion. John notes that they were cowering behind locked doors on what turned out to be Easter Sunday. The miracles of calming the sea or raising of Lazarus were all forgotten as they could not comprehend what went wrong that the power of God was totally absent in the death of Jesus. Now they feared for their lives too! And this Sunday’s Gospel, John's account of the discovery of the empty tomb, shows Mary Magdalene, and then Peter and the beloved disciple, as initially clueless. For Magdalene, the discovery that the stone had been rolled back could mean only one thing: grave robbers; someone had carried off the body of her Master.
When she informs Peter and the beloved disciple, they run to the tomb to verify her report. On closer inspection they notice not just the absence of the body; they notice the linen wrapping lying on the ground, and the napkin that had bound Jesus' face set aside and nicely rolled up. What to make of this? Would grave robbers have bothered to undress the corpse before carrying it off? And would not the removal of linen bonded to a bloody body be a difficult and uninviting task and for what purpose? And is not the whole point of grave robbery to loot treasure? Of what commercial value is a corpse? No. The presence of the wrapping and the open grave demanded another explanation.
Most people are aware that the famous Shroud of Turin has long been venerated as precisely the wrappings mentioned in John's account. While the jury is still out regarding the authenticity of the Shroud, some of the observations of its scientific analyzers raise some fascinating questions about that piece of cloth. Trying to account for the negative image scorched on the linen and the nature of the blood stains, one (non-Christian) examiner said, in effect, “The only way I can account for these phenomena is that, to leave the blood stains intact and to produce this kind of image, the body must have somehow passed through the cloth while producing an immense light.”
The task of Easter is to rekindle the creed within ourselves. The earliest Christians, immediately upon experiencing the resurrected Jesus, spontaneously voiced a one line creed: “Jesus is Lord!” That does, in fact, says it all! When we affirm that Jesus has been raised from the dead and is Lord of this world we are saying everything else within our faith as well. In essence, we are saying that God is ultimately still in charge of this universe, despite any indications to the contrary; that graciousness and gentleness, as manifested in Jesus, are ultimately what lies at the root of all reality; that our sufferings, disappointments and daily martyrdom of witnessing to our faith, like Jesus’, is redemptive precisely because, like him, we too, in the face of helplessness before the worst brutality the world could perpetrate, could still say: “Forgive them for they know not what they do!”
Ours is an Easter religion. The resurrection is not simply a proof that Jesus is truly son of God; it is also the sign that cosmic history has taken a new and fresh turn. The resurrection of Jesus enables us to let God reign in our ordinary lives in ways that demonstrate we are part of a new creation—not complete, obviously, but that kingdom is evident wherever communities allow the spirit of the risen Lord to have its way. We as individuals and families can make that choice on a daily basis. Blessings of the Risen Lord to you and your family!
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.