REFLECTIONS TODAY
Gospel • John 20:1-9
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 cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths 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.
Not just a bit more of life
In my book Living Word on Breathing Earth, I suggest that we see the resurrection awaiting us as God’s way of recreating humanity and the natural world. I use the metaphor of a caterpillar that, after spending time inside a cocoon, is recreated into a beautiful butterfly. There is continuity, but there is also a substantial change. This way of understanding resurrection is closer to what Ernst Käsemann tries to explain: that resurrection is God’s reign on earth and not just a bit more of life.
Today is Easter Sunday. We are Easter people, a people whose re-creation has already been initiated by Christ’s death and resurrection. We may recall that the first Easter took place on the first day after the Sabbath, which signifies a beginning of a great new day.
Today’s Gospel passage narrates Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb while it is still dark. She only intends to grieve. Her friend and master died. It must have been very painful. Logically therefore, she simply wants to grieve—a mere continuation of her former life.
We know that her encounter with the risen Lord has definitely changed her life. It is essentially a changed life and not just a more of the same: grieving will be replaced by joy, fear by boldness, mere human by divine relationship. Resurrection is indeed God’s reign over our life, a life permeated by the divine. It is a whole new way of living. It is what awaits us in God’s Kingdom in the end of time. But it is already present in the here and now.
With Christ’s victory over sin and death, we no longer need to wait for the eschatological age to be reigned by God. Divine life is now made accessible. We are called to move from our former way of life to the life God intends us to have. We can now begin anew. Christ’s resurrection conveys that there is always a possibility to begin again. Whatever happened to us in the past, if we open ourselves to the power of Christ’s resurrection, we become new creatures divinely empowered for a mission.
The experience of Covid-19 pandemic should still be clear in our individual as well as collective memory. We all know how difficult time it was: we grieved over our losses, feared sickness and death, we became aware of our limits. In his encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis challenges us not to return to our former way of life after the abovementioned health crisis.
Our life must no longer be a more of the same. We who are still physically alive to celebrate this Easter Sunday are all survivors. We have to ask ourselves of some important questions: Why am I still here? Is my life now a mere continuation of my former life? Has my life changed to something that is more divine?
Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: publishing@stpauls.ph; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.