Solemnity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – 2021
A fifth-grade class planned to perform an Easter pageant for the parish. Each boy and girl had an assigned part. Girls took the roles of Salome, Mary Magdalene and the other woman at the cross. Boys got to play Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, the sons of Zebedee, Peter, and the Roman guards. Johnny, an energized kid wanted to play the part of the stone that rolls in front of the tomb. The stone required no costume; Johnny would roll himself up into a ball and become the stone before the tomb. At the final performance, the teacher, feeling sorry for Johnny, asked if he wanted to play the role of Nicodemus and get to wear a costume. The boy playing Nicodemus could be the stone that night. But Johnny would have none of it. “Besides Jesus, the stone is the most important part,” Johnny said. “Why?” the teacher asked. “If the stone doesn’t roll away, then nobody can get into the tomb and see that it’s empty!”
What wisdom came out of the mouth of this young boy. He understood what perhaps even the teacher did not, that the stone was not rolled away for the person inside the tomb (Jesus), but for the benefit of those outside the tomb (us). The stone was not rolled away to let Jesus out, but to let us all in. Easter does that for us, it rolls the stone away so that we might penetrate the very mystery of life and death.
The tomb could not hold Christ and it cannot hold us either. And no stone is too large that God cannot roll it away.
What are the stones that Easter rolls away? Our personal stones that perhaps we have been trying to move all during Lent are the very ones that can be moved away at Easter. The stone can be made up of weakness and fear, injustice and violence, anger, and guilt. Our stones may take many forms. Easter tells us that God wants the stones that keep us entombed to roll away with the same vigor that Johnny played it up with the fifth-grade pageant!
Where do our personal stones originate?
The mystery of where our personal stones come from is not so great a mystery. In truth, our own stones, blocking the empty tomb of Easter’s vindication and fullness of life, can seem heavy still. These can come from years of neglect of our spiritual and moral life, left-over from an unhealthy relationship, anger, or resentment towards someone, feeding our bodies with unhealthy substances instead of Christ Jesus. In truth, what prevents us from rolling away the stone and entering the empty tomb is the same thing that kept the apostles away on that first Easter. FEAR!
The disciples knew only terror upon the death of Jesus. Many of them went into hiding not only because they feared the Roman and Jewish authorities. They also wondered whether God had turned against Jesus. God had abandoned Jesus to the cross –so they thought.
Isn’t this the same for us when tragedy and hardship enter our lives? Yet the empty tomb and the rolled-up burial clothes bid us not to be afraid, but to believe, like the women and the disciple whom Jesus loved believed in our gospel story.
Stones do roll away!
Our stones have many names, and some stones are more massive than others: stones of loneliness and pain, stones of hunger and thirst, stones of unbelief and doubt, stones of grief and loss. Who will roll away the stone for us? The message of Easter for all of us is Hope! Hope that the one who is raised up from the tomb is ready to roll away our stones and grant us the faith of the disciple who ran to the tomb with Peter and believed!
The Beloved Disciple outruns Peter but waits and allows Peter to enter the tomb first. But it is only the Beloved Disciple who at this time is said to believe (20:8). This is the more striking because right after this we read, “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead” (20:9).
Fear and darkness still gripped the hearts of Jesus’ followers – the darkness of grief, sorrow, and hopelessness. They must work through that fear and hopelessness until the passage of the Emmaus story.
Only John’s gospel speaks of a garden where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb. From this garden God decided to begin creation anew, so while it is still dark God breathed once again into a human figure, and the new Adam was raised up and would never die again. But the hope for all of us is that we are baptized into that same Resurrection, so that we too will never suffer eternal death.
Sisters and Brothers, may we all find a new hope and a new life in the resurrected Christ, who brings joy and hope to us all!
Happy Easter!