Easter Sunday

Homily for Easter Sunday, 2009
Fr. Mark

We may feel faintly disappointed by the Gospel reading today for Easter Sunday. After all the rich glories of the last three days – the institution of the Eucharist, the celebration of the triumph of the cross and the solemn but joyful celebration of the resurrection at the Easter Vigil – today’s Gospel (Jn 20:1-9)seems a bit flat. It appears to present only half the story – the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. It seems to emphasise the absence of Jesus rather than his risen presence. Perhaps a key question we are left with at the end of the Gospel is: why is it said of ‘the other’ disciple that ‘he saw and believed’; especially as until this time they had failed to understand the scripture that he must rise again?

The answer lies in John’s understanding of ‘signs’ in the life of Jesus. For John, Jesus is a wonderful mystery – a revelation of God and of God’s great plan of salvation for all mankind. Mysteries for John can be entered into, glimpsed and experienced by putting faith in the signs. All through the Gospels these signs give us some revelation of the meaning of Jesus. Here at the end of the Gospel the signs of the stone rolled away, the empty tomb and the folded linen cloth – that can be clearly seen – serve to give us entrance into the mystery of the resurrection. We are standing on the threshold of something wonderful and amazing, something that draws us to faith.

The signs become meaningful when the disciples saw them in the light of what they already knew of Jesus. They grew in this knowledge from living with him and as they journeyed along with him. Their love of Jesus and the trust they put in him left them open to gradual and fuller understanding of what he said and what he did.

As we ourselves see and believe these signs we are drawn into glimpsing and experiencing further revelation of the mystery we have been celebrating these past days.

If we were to read the rest of this chapter of John and the next one (Chapter 21), we would see a progression of revelation about the resurrection until the climax at the sea of Tiberias when the beloved disciple exclaimed to Peter: ‘It is the Lord!’ In today’s Gospel the disciple only experienced the beginnings of understanding of what had happened. So the signs had opened to him the doorway through which he could go and discover more fully the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection.

This is a telling point because it corresponds to our own experience. Full Easter faith is something we progress into as we see happened with the disciples. An important element of this progress is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Later in John’s Gospel Jesus appears to the disciples, breathes on them and says, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ For John this is the key to experiencing the resurrection in real and deeper way. This is reflected in our liturgy by the fact that following Easter Sunday we enter a seven-week period in which we will rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal more and more the wonder and joy of the risen Jesus.

Today we are given an opportunity to let the Spirit begin this work anew in our hearts and our daily lives.