Editor’s note: This is Bishop Douglas J. Lucia’s homily delivered on Easter Sunday.
“[Mary of Magdala] 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’” (Jn 20:2).
As you can see, I have a glass with some water in it. There are two ways of looking at this glass of water. Some people would look at the glass and say it is half empty. There are others who would look at the glass and say it is half full. (Note: I Drink all of the water in the glass.)
Well, we solved that problem, didn’t we? Now everyone who looks at this glass would say that it is empty, but guess what? Everyone still wouldn’t look at the glass in the same way. Some would look at the glass and grumble and complain because it’s empty. Others would look at the glass and see it as a glass just waiting to be filled with good things to drink. I guess there are always different ways to look at any situation.
On the Sunday morning after Jesus was crucified, a woman named Mary (from the town of Magdala) went to visit the grave where the body of Jesus had been laid. When she got there, she found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. She ran to find someone to tell them what she had seen. She found two of the disciples, Peter and John, and she said to them, “They have taken our Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him.”
The three of them immediately ran to the tomb. When they got there, they all saw the same thing, but they didn’t all look at it in the same way. Peter looked and was curious. The Bible says Peter went into the empty tomb and looked around. He saw burial cloths lying around and the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head folded neatly and placed where the body had been. “Hmmm, very interesting,” Peter might have said to himself.
Mary looked and was sad. The Bible tells us that Mary didn’t even go inside the empty tomb. She just stood outside the tomb and wept because she feared that someone had stolen the body of Jesus.
John looked and believed. The Bible says John went inside the tomb and he saw and believed. Now, I don’t know exactly how much John understood, but I think he believed that Jesus had risen from the grave just as he had said he would.
Three people — they all saw the same thing — one was curious, one was sad, and one believed. I think that is pretty much the same way people react to the story of Jesus today. Some people hear the story and they are curious; others hear it and think it is sad; others hear it and believe.
So here is my question to you this morning, my dear friends — “Is the empty tomb the end of the story?” If it is, it still suggests that there may be something to wait for, but if we read other Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection or even read the verses that follow today’s Easter Gospel from John, you and I learn that there is more to the story.
In fact, if we read a little farther along in John, Chapter 20 where today’s Gospel comes from, we learn that Mary stays outside the tomb weeping — while Peter and the other disciple leave the tomb with their own thoughts about what they had seen. All of a sudden a voice asks her: “Woman, why are you weeping?” She looks into the empty tomb and two angels (“Who are the angels? God’s messengers!”) are in the tomb. She then explains how concerned she is that Jesus’ body is not there — that it has been taken. She then turns again and sees another person who asks her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She doesn’t recognize who is speaking to her, but begs for the body of Jesus to be given to her.
At that moment, Jesus calls her by name, “Mary,” and she turns her attention to the voice — “Rabbouni – Teacher!” — and she grabs on to him in her excitement. It is interesting because Jesus tells her to not hold on to him (notice this means Jesus is real, he is not a ghost) — but to go and announce to his other friends what she has seen and that he was ascending to the Father. Now why is this important? Because before Jesus died on the cross, he told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them, so that where he was, they also would be.
So the story is not over, but as Jesus prepares a place for each one of us, like Mary, he invites us to share the Good News of the empty tomb with others. Let me conclude by telling you the very special story of a little boy named Philip who was born with Down syndrome.
On Easter Sunday his religion teacher brought an empty plastic egg for each child in the class. They were instructed to go out of the church building onto the grounds and put into the egg something that would remind them of the meaning of Easter.
All returned joyfully. As each egg was opened there were exclamations of delight at a butterfly, a twig, a flower, a blade of grass. Then the last egg was opened. It was Philip’s, and it was empty! Some of the children made fun of Philip. “But, teacher,” he said, “teacher, the tomb was empty.”
A newspaper article announcing Philip’s death a few months later noted that at the conclusion of the funeral eight children marched forward and put a large empty egg on the small casket. On it was a banner that said, “The tomb was empty.”
Brothers and sisters, as you and I stand at the empty tomb, let us each in his or her own way, joyfully announce to the world this day and in the 50 days of the Easter season: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!”
