Homily for Easter Sunday Morning

In John, no well-informed angels rushed in to explain the missing body. Mary had expected to find at least a corpse; instead she found a void, an opening in the darkness.

I have Mass on Easter Sunday Morning at St. Isidore @ 7:30/9:30 am

The 7:30 am Mass will be live-streamed. https://stisidore.church/worship-online/

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. 

"On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, 'They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him.' 

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter, and arrived at the tomb first. He bent down and saw the burial-cloth there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial-cloth there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial-cloths, but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. 

For they did not yet understand the scripture, that he had to rise from the dead." 

The Gospel of the Lord. 

In the Gospel of John, most of the action in the light of Easter day is made up of people literally running around, trying to come to terms with what God has done in the night. God raises the dead, before the world is fully awake to what is happening. We are caught off guard and struggle to catch up.

 We Christians inherited a way of telling time from our Jewish ancestors. The new day begins not at a mathematically determined midnight or at the start of the human workday, but at sunset, as humans go to rest. This way of keeping time inaugurates each day with the fertile darkness of divine grace that renews the face of the earth in advance of our efforts. The first part of the day passes in darkness, but not in inactivity. 

God is out growing the crops even before the farmer is up, and knitting together the wound before the clinic opens. The Gospels are silent as Christ rises like a thief in the night. In John, no well-informed angels rush in to explain the missing body. Mary had expected to find at least a corpse. Instead, she found a void, an opening in the darkness. 

All Christians everywhere are searchers for the Lord, like Mary Magdalene, before dawn. But although it is dark, the Lord is already present in the garden with Mary Magdalene and with us. 

Before his death, Jesus said, unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. The Japanese poet Ikyu Sojun wrote, "If you break open the cherry tree, where are the flowers? But in the springtime, see how they bloom." The same is true of us. What depths, what graces do we contain? We await our own blooming. 

Necessary things happen in the dark. This spring's seeds break open in dark winter soil. God's spirit hovers over dark water, preparing to create worlds. The child we wait for grows in the deep darkness of the womb. The Irish poet and mystic John O'Donohue wrote, "When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you." 

In the garden, we encounter three seekers, Mary Magdalene, the beloved disciple, and Simon Peter. Each one searches for the Lord in his or her own way. Each has their own way of loving, and each their own emptiness. 

Father Tomas Halek, the Czech theologian, has argued that the future of the Church depends on her ability to reach out to the seekers of our society. These are often called the "nones," that's spelled N-O-N-E-S, not N-U-N-S, the people who mark religious affiliation, None. They, too, are often searching for the meaning of their lives. Halek writes that Christians must thus be willing to be seekers with those who seek, and questioners with those who question. 

All the accounts of the resurrection are filled with questions. Twice, Mary Magdalene is asked why she is weeping. She asks where they have put the body. They all ask why the tomb is empty. 

In Mark's account, the women ask, "Who will roll away the stone for us?" 

Luke's account of the resurrection is filled with questions. Why do you seek the living among the dead? Jesus asks the disciples fleeing to Emmaus, "What are you talking about?" Then all of the disciples, "Why are you frightened? Why do doubts arise in your hearts?" 

The resurrection bursts into our lives not as a bald statement of fact, but in searching questions. Profound questions do not seek information. They invite us to be alive in a new way, and to speak a new language. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

The resurrection is not Jesus' life beginning again after a brief interruption, but a new day of being alive in which death has been conquered. And so it bursts into our lives and the Gospels first as urgent questions which will not let us go on living in the same way. "None of us will live forever, but all of us can live in the forever." 

The risen Christ embodies all those who seek to understand the meaning of their lives, the God-shaped void in our hearts, as Blaise Pascal said. 

In his book, My Door is Always Open, Pope Francis writes, "In this quest to seek and find God in all things, there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be." The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties. We must be humble. Abraham leaves his home without knowing where he was going, by faith. Our life is not given to us like an opera libretto in which all is written down, but it means going, walking, doing, searching, seeing. We must enter into the adventure of the quest for meeting God. We must let God search and encounter us. 

Pope Francis assures us, "I have a dogmatic certainty. God is in every person's life.