“Away grief’s gasping, joyless days,
Dejection. Across my foundering deck shown a beacon, an eternal beam.”
G. M. Hopkins, S.J.
The very first time the person of Jesus appears in the Gospel of John, He beckons two disciples of the Baptist to “come and see”. The remainder of the Gospel follows those three words. Jesus will be flashing signs inviting a faith-statement from those who could see. Seeing becomes a most important response to seeing the signs. Chapter nine is entirely dedicated to the recovery of seeing for a man who was born not able to see. Jesus came to be seen! In the same first chapter, that same John the Baptist declares that he has seen and testifies that, “He is the Son of God”. Jn. 1-34 So the theme is set and meant to be seen through out the Gospel.
All the “seeing” in the remainder of John’s Gospel leads to our Easter-Liturgy. Mary Magdala arrives and what she does see is not Jesus, but a visible fact, the stone guarding the tomb was rolled away. One of John’s other key images is “light and dark”, “It was still dark”. Whether out of fear, excitement or uncertainty, or just as a news broadcaster, Mary runs to find help .
John, the “disciple whom Jesus loved” and Peter ran to the tomb. John got there first. Peter arrived second, but was the first to come into the tomb. Here’s what they saw. Nothing! Emptiness except for the burial cloths. John “saw and believed.” They did not understand, but lived beyond that.
I have the joy and enjoyment of guiding engaged-couples, here at Creighton University, through their preparation for their beginning the Sacramental Journey of Marriage. Eventually we get to their first meeting, their courtship, their individual arrival at the awareness of their love for each other. It is seldom arrived at simultaneously. Guess who comes in second most often.
My interest is around the amount of signs, gestures, surprises, demonstrations, even words to convince the other. “How close did you have to come? How definitively to force the issue?” That does stop them for a while. “Close enough to attract, but not so close as to force!” They usually laugh at themselves which resolves into the mystery of their loving relationship. It cannot be proven!
Next Sunday we will be encouraged by the words of Jesus, after Thomas’ belief-statement, that those are blessed who have not seen and yet believe. It is a comfort to be blessed for believing without seeing, but it is very hard, especially in the darks of our human days.
This great Easter event celebrates that God has come very close, close enough to attract us. God has kept a safe distance so to allow belief to be a free response to that closeness. Of course, we want “more please,” more tangibility, more of seeing. We like to be convinced as with the engaged-couples. They want their love, their belief in their being loved, to be a heartfully-free response. Mary Magdala and her two seeking companions did not see what they wanted, what their hearts longed for. Their Easter is so similar to our own these days of light, growth and still seeking all that we desire and hope for. Enjoy the not-seeing, not being convinced and yet believing. In short, enjoy entering into the belief-seeing of Jesus’ early friends as they lived His Resurrection without their seeing.
Rev. Larry Gillick, SJ
I entered the Society of Jesus in 1960, after graduating from Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attending St. Norbert College for two years. I was ordained in 1972 after completing theological studies at the Toronto School of Theology, Regis College. I presently minister in the Deglman Center for Ignatian Spirituality at Creighton and give retreats.
I enjoy sharing thoughts on the Daily Reflections. It is a chance to share with a wide variety of people in the Christian community experiences of prayer and life which have been given to me. It is a bit like being in more places than just here. We actually get out there without having to pay airlines to do it. The word of God is alive and well.
