For Sunday Easter
Note: This reflection is written for Easter Day. I’m publishing it in the middle of Holy Week. For many, including myself, this can feel like a cognitive disturbance. My intention for this series is always to write in advance of Sunday for those who are preparing sermons and as the material I put into a physical letter we send to people for the weekend. For those traveling the path of Holy Week, I encourage you to bookmark this post and return to it on Saturday night or Sunday morning.
Collect
Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
Mary checks on the tomb herself. After the activity of the first day, of preparing his body for the tomb and perhaps the tomb for his body, and then a day of silence, absence, Mary returns to the place of her Lord’s final rest. There is a natural warmth I imagine is here, of love and devotion. Of the one who understood Jesus best.
The tomb’s emptiness is famously shocking, as is her attempt to bring this news to others. Those who, like Thomas a few days from now, need to see it for themselves rather than take her word for it. An idea we should hold onto for a couple of weeks.
The tomb is also not really empty, for there is someone there, nearby, a potential gardener she thinks, who reveals himself to be, in fact, the risen Jesus — a twist that we all see coming, but she doesn’t.
The classic Easter joy, I suspect, may best be filtered through these lenses of confusion and half-belief. That come from grief and and reversals, trials and victories, and in the end, compel us to overcome our assumed finalities. Like death. And that we find, in the waning hours of night, that the break of day brings with it new revelations; changes that defy expectations. And that we, in fact, have new reasons to rejoice.