“On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away. Two men stood there in blazing clothes and said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen’.” (Lk 24)
HE is risen! These words shatter all expectations and preconceived notions about life and death, not just for the women disciples but for all people.
The living are not to be found among the dead.
When we celebrate Easter we are not just celebrating a past event, something that happened to Jesus.
We celebrate the good-news that this past event has opened for us a way in and through the great mystery of death.
Easter is the celebration of life now – my life in a fullness not previously known.
For most of the Old Testament world the people of Israel had no concept of what happened after death.
Death marked an ending to life, an end to personal human existence, an end to being in relationship with God.
Just before the birth of Christianity this attitude began to change with that hope that surely God would give life beyond the grave to the righteous.
There developed the belief that at the end of time God would raise the dead and those judged as faithful and righteous would then continue to live with God. We see this idea in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 25.
At the same time an alternative view was developing, that to be human meant already possessing something of God’s own life as God’s gift. There was within each of us a spark of God’s eternity life and this would never die.
We see this idea in the book of Wisdom which was written as late as 50 BCE, just before the Christian era.
According to Wisdom, because human beings are made in God’s image they can participate in God’s immortality if they choose the path of righteousness.
God’s own incorruptible Spirit is a gift to the righteous allowing them to live forever “in the hand of God” (Wis 3:1).
This is why Wisdom can say that physical death is not really death, for “they only seem to die” (Wis 3:2).
In this understanding life is more than mere physical existence, it is already a communion with God, and physical death neither destroys nor interrupts this.
The Gospel of John develops this understanding of what it means to be a human person and speaks of Jesus offering “eternity life” – that is the life of God’s eternity. Life continues beyond the boundary of death.
This is the triumph that Christians celebrate at Easter. Jesus’ life, death and return to the disciples after death, confirms what the book of Wisdom had proposed.
Our human life is not snuffed out in death, but passes over into a human, though no longer corporeal, eternity life within the Divine embrace.
Jesus’ return to the disciples and to us, demonstrates the truth of his words, “I have come that you may have life to the full”. (John 10:10)
Because of Easter, life and death are forever changed. Life lived now in the radiance of Easter is already leaning into life beyond a tomb.
In the Resurrection the stone has been rolled back from all tombs showing that death is not a “dead end”.
God’s infinite embrace is already reaching out to us in this life, and we in turn are already leaning into God’s infinity.
The Gospel of this year, Matthew, offers further good-news for us today.
The angelic figure at the tomb tells the women, “Go quickly and tell the disciples, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him”. (Matt 28:27)
So the disciples return from Jerusalem to Galilee and do find him. But in this meeting we are told – “When they saw him they worshipped him; but some still doubted”. (29:17)
This glimpse of Matthew’s community gladdens my heart. Here is a community wrestling with faith and doubt while in the presence of Jesus.
My own heart knows such struggle. Even as I speak of the transfiguring power of Easter Sunday, there are times when I seem to be stuck in the darkness of Saturday and even to name it as Holy seems blasphemy.
The glimpse of Jesus in the midst of doubt-filled disciples gives me cause to hope that in those times when I experience life’s darkness, this is but a shadow cast by the presence of One standing in light too blinding for my eyes to see.
Matthew’s Gospel then continues with Jesus’ commission to these doubt-filled, faith-filled disciples, “Go and make disciples of all nations … and lo I am with you always to the close of the age”.
And here the Gospel ends. In Matthew there is no ascension. The Gospel closes on the promise of Jesus, “I am with you always”. Jesus has returned to the disciples never to leave them.
Easter celebrates that God is always with us, and we are always with God.
Sr Mary Coloe is a member of the Presentation Sisters order. She is associate professional in the School of Theology at the Australian Catholic University Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s)
