In the gospel reading today we encounter a well known scene. It is Sunday morning in the first light of the day, the third day since the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene is there to complete the burial rituals to honor the corpse of Jesus – only to discover an empty tomb. She was already grieving, carrying that pain and loss until the completion of the Sabbath, and now this – someone has taken the body of Jesus; a final insult and desecration. It is too much. She is in tears.

She encounters two angels who ask her why she is crying. There is no reaction to the encounter itself. She is taken in her grief. She shows no concern for angels, but only asks where someone might have moved the body. They have no answer and so she moves on encountering a person she takes to be the gardener. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or Peter and the disciples later at the Sea of Galilee, she doesn’t recognize Jesus,

Today’s gospel from St. Matthew  is familiar to all readers: Jesus has been crucified, died, and laid within a tomb guarded by soldiers and watched by Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.” The Sabbath has passed and dawn approaches on the first day of a new week.

The gospel accounts of the empty tomb are fairly similar. Women (names and number of women differ) come to the tomb early on Sunday morning. The stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty. Some of the gospels have an angelic messenger who speaks to the women.

There is great diversity in the accounts of the appearances of the risen Christ. It is difficult to harmonize any of them. Perhaps there is a message in that: Our contemporary experiences of the risen Christ will differ. There are those who visibly see a white light and others don’t. There are those who experience Christ in a radical transformation, A “born-again” event in their lives. There are those for whom Christ has been such a reality throughout their lives that they can’t think of a moment when Christ wasn’t present to them or when there was a great turning point in their lives. How the risen Christ comes to people differ – then and now. Our stories about the risen Christ’s presence in our lives differ – and in that lack of uniformity there is witness to the breadth of humanity.  

The woman left the empty tomb “fearful yet overjoyed” only to encounter the Risen Christ telling them: “Do not be afraid.” A good message for us. Resurrection faith does not arise on the basis of evidence, of which the chief priests and soldiers had plenty, but on the basis of the experienced presence of the risen Christ, by testimony of those to whom he appeared, and by his own continuing presence among his disciples – on the Easter morning and in all the days since.

We need to be a people unafraid to proclaim a radical resurrection faith in the present, not just a historical event. We need to tell it with joy!

He is risen! Alleluia!

Image credit: Christ’s Appearance to Mary after the Resurrection | Alexander Ivanov | Russian Museum | PD-US