Each of our four Gospels share various stories about Jesus’ resurrection. We read and hear from Matthew’s account in our Eucharistic liturgy for today. There are two pictures, two differing and opposing narratives.
Two Mary’s go to the tomb and a brightly arrayed angel easily rolls back the stone blocking the tomb’s entrance and actually sits right down on it. He invites the two searchers to have a look-see and behold there was nothing to behold except nothing, no-body.
The tomb was empty, but the stone first placed there upon His burial was still there when the women arrived. It might be that the Resurrection happened without physical evidence such as His footprints, His bloody garment. Rather than stand there questioning the angel urged them to leave with fear and yet excitement. On their way, more beholding! Jesus meets and greets them, but not much time spent showing Jesus homage. “Keep going to My followers and I will spend time with them back in Galilee.” They would, of course, want answers, but what they get is missioning. They just cannot explain what they have experienced. They are the first post-resurrection ministers!
The second little account is the post-resurrection bribery story. The two Mary’s had no explanation. The guards have their mission trip into the city to explain something they too cannot understand. The tension rises. The elders fix a plausible story and give money to the soldiers to keep their mouths shut and that was their mission. The two women are to speak of the Resurrection and the Roman soldiers are to keep it to themselves.
The Church these past two days have been doing lots of prayerful singing. The two Mary’s go off humming, “How can I keep from singing”. The guards spend their money and lives humming “Within the sound of silence”.
So here’s our Eastering. The invitation is clear, keep singing, keep wondering, keep living without clear explanations and ego-centered demands to know. We too have the option to keep Jesus in the tomb of our fears, “not being enough, what will people say, will I be successful.”
The guards lived in the silence of fear and yet wonder about what really happened back there. Easter Monday is a very good day to be untombed and freed from various forms of silence and perhaps shame. Jesus rises every time we speak with words and gestures of the love and freedom outside our tombs.
Happy singing, Alleluia.
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.
