20
Jn.20: 1-9
Are you ready to run for Jesus carrying his Good News, and sharing it with people you meet in your day to day life?
Today we celebrate the great mystery and testimony of our faith the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead. We celebrate Easter every year but its mystery dimension remains the same. However, it gives us foretaste of the glorious end that we believe and professes in our creed: “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” However, this year’s Lent and Holy Week were different from previous years and we too walked the way of the cross along with Christ carrying the cross of the corona pandemic. If so, What does this year’s Easter commemoration contribute to our life?
In today’s gospel we see that when Mary Magdalene informs Peter and John about the empty tomb, they ran to the tomb, where Jesus was buried. John ran ahead of Peter, of course, Peter was senior man and John was the youngest among the apostles. Why did they run to the tomb? Did they believe in the resurrection of Jesus? We can be sure that they did not believe in his resurrection even after listening to his prophecy about the triumphant end of his life. Ach. Bp. Fulton J. Sheen states that the close collaborators of Jesus like Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, and other disciples, none of them believed in the resurrection of Jesus whereas His enemies strongly believed in the possibility of his resurrection. That’s why they sealed his tomb and appointed soldiers to guard his dead body. A man, who had a very tragic and miserable death, abandoned by all even his close collaborators…Yet his enemies were frightened and sensed something unusual in his death like the events occurred soon after the death-like “darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sunlight failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.”(Lk. 23: 44-45) Even after all these signs disciples could not remind themselves about what said about his resurrection. Then why did they run? The answer is that they wanted to find the missing body of Jesus taken by the enemies.
Let us come back to the spot. So John reached the place first and he waited for Peter to enter inside the tomb first. Why then he did not go inside to check the body of Jesus? When John reached he might have realized that probably no one has stolen the body of Jesus. How can he be so sure of this fact? If anyone has stolen the body of Jesus, a dead body that is also three days old. In the Semitic culture, they anoint the body with costly perfumes so decaying can be slow. Anyhow, would anyone remove the clothes that they used to cover the dead body? If at all they remove, would they leave it there? Scripture says that the cloth that covered his head was not along with the linen cloth but separately rolled and kept.
Then Peter comes following him John also goes inside and believes. They could not find any evidence that supports the information that someone has stolen the body of Jesus and they did not encounter an empty tomb over there but a tomb filled with hope. A life that they thought was over forever has not been ended… He has risen… the ties of the linen clothes could not limit him to the tomb forever… and the destiny of the linen clothes was to become the monument and an original testament of this great mystery. They ran to the tomb with a doubtful heart but now from the tomb they ran with a heart filled with Good News and the rest of their life they ran to share this Good News with others.
Dear friends, we too encounter this empty tomb experience in our life may be the present world scenario, a pandemic that caused a lot for each one of us, some of us lost their dear and near ones, some of us suffered from this sickness, some of us had to face the financial difficulties, some of us could not proceed with our dream projects we had to encounter this empty tomb experience however we failed to see the linen clothes lying down there. He is there in our empty tomb because He has risen. Let us run back and fill the life of our brethren with the Good News.