Just yesterday morning during my watch I sat in the chapel by the altar. The sacrament that we blessed on Maundy Thursday, that we later consumed just last night, sat in the middle of the altar, surrounded by seven eight-day votives, and four ten-hour votives. The candles in the short blue holders flickered and, as the two hours went by, went out one by one.
Casting my eyes from my spot in the back pew, I saw the other vestiges of Good Friday, the empty tomb. The most powerful reminder of the death of Jesus lies in the aumbry door left wide open with its white linen interior there for all to see. The votive above the altar no longer has a candle. That space is utterly bare, void of Jesus’ presence. It is heart-breaking.
Save the fans of the heaters turning on and shutting off, the chapel is utterly still. Tomb-like, quiet. Empty. The church even more so with its bare altar, washed clean on Maundy Thursday.
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Just this morning, a few of us, like the women, came back to the tomb, in the stillness of the morning, in the darkness of the day. We prayed:
O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
And then we said together the second anthem that is prayed at the beginning of the burial office:
In the midst of life we are in death;
from whom can we seek help?
Holy God, Holy and Mighty,
Holy and merciful Savior,
deliver us not into the bitterness of eternal death.
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And now… we have journeyed a very long way to reach this point wherein we, like the women, stand in front of this empty tomb. We don’t quite know what it means for us. Confronting the mystery of the resurrection should leave us wordless because it doesn’t make sense. How can we be happy about an empty tomb when we want to see our Lord again?
Perhaps putting ourselves back into the place of the women who gathered that first morning at the tomb in the early light of morning might help.
Elizabeth McAllister writes of this moment:
Imagine the feelings of the women. It is a terrible moment, swirling with apathy, betrayal, overwhelming odds, oppression, and senseless suffering. Jesus had promised so much — where is it now? It seems so long ago.
The weight of the powers of this world and their inertia (or worse) forces us to concede that the world can’t be transformed! It is also a bitter journey for these women…. [But] the tomb is sealed shut by a huge boulder. Put there by the authorities to certify Jesus’ death, the stone also serves to ensure the women’s separation from him. They aren’t even granted the presence of his corpse to comfort them in their ritual of mourning. It is the final ignominy.
But then there’s an earthquake, an angel, guards frozen in fear! This is the kairos moment, an aperture of hope that the story might have a future after all. Like the tomb, the story has been reopened.… Is it possible that not even the imperial death grip and sealed barricade could put an end to the journey? They are too frightened to think, too joyful to stand still. What is this all about?
Amazingly, it is an invitation to follow him again. Resume the way. And resume it, knowing what the consequences may be…. From within the old human being, guarded and barricaded and securely sealed, a new person is emerging. (1)
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We, like the women, face a new future tonight, a future where death cannot hold us, where we are made new. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for us from all eternity and tonight we get a glimpse of it as we stand by the empty tomb.
As we look into that empty tomb, realising that Christ has risen, where do we find that kairos moment, that moment of hope that has been offered to us? How do we follow Jesus again? Where are we surprised by joy? And how do we proclaim that Christ is risen?
Each of us will find our way and answers to these questions this Easter-tide. Our journey begins anew tonight. Let us proclaim boldly, then, without fear but joyfully, Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed — Alleluia.
END NOTE
(1) Megan McKenna, And Morning Came: Scriptures of the Resurrection (Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward, 2003), 77-78.
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