John 20: 1-9
Today is the day of resurrection. He is risen, indeed! Alleluia, praise the Lord! Throughout Lent we have followed Jesus with his cross, and today we rejoice with him in his resurrection. It is a day of joy and rejoicing. What more can we say than Alleluia! This past week we have walked with Jesus the lonesome road. We have seen him give his life for us. Now we understand how we are to live our lives. We are to give our life for others.
- During the dark days of World War II, amid the horrors that were being
perpetrated by the Nazi regime, there were … pinpoints of light and
nobility. [i] One such source of noble light was a German soldier, Private
Joseph Schultz. Sent to Yugoslavia shortly after the invasion, Schultz was a
loyal young German soldier, filled with what he had perceived to be an ideal
worthy of his dedication. One day, while on duty, the sergeant called out
eight names, Schultz’s among them. Thinking that they were going out on a
routine patrol, the soldiers set out. As they made their way over a hill,
they came upon eight Yugoslavians, five men and three women. Only after they
had drawn to within 50 feet of them, a distance from which any marksman
could shoot the eye out of a pheasant, the soldiers realized what their
mission was.
The sergeant barked out his orders and the eight soldiers lined up. “Ready!” he shouted and they raised their rifled. Aim” … and they focused their sights. Suddenly, in the silence that hung heavy in the air, they hear the thud of a rifle butt hitting the ground and as the sergeant and the seven other soldiers turned to look, they saw Private Schultz walking toward the Yugoslavians. Ignoring an order to come back, Schultz walked the fifty feet to the mound of the hill and joined hands with the five men and three women.
After a moment of stunned silence, the sergeant yelled, “Fire!” and Private Schultz died, mingling his blood with those innocent men and women. Later, an excerpt from St. Paul’s letter to the Coriathoans was found on his body: “Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13: 6-8).
Love makes resurrection. We cannot think of Jesus rising from the dead without thinking of his love for us. His love makes us also rise with him. Resurrection is not something in the future, it is right now. Just as love is right now, so is resurrection. As Paul says, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died” (1 Cor. 15: 12-20).
- A beautiful example of resurrection is a little African boy named Encozzi
who had AIDS. I’m sure you saw him on TV a year or two ago. “According to a
60 Minutes report there are over 500 million people in Africa who suffer
from AIDS, many of them babies. Because of the lack of medical aid these
babies are often abandoned at birth. But a white woman adopted Encozzi to
love and care for him. That love enabled him to make a choice that would not
only sanctify his own life but that of many others. He insisted on going to
school and chose to break the silence of those who had AIDS as he spoke
freely about his condition.
“He was invited to speak at the UN and his presence was so touching that he raised more financial backing for AIDS research than the most prestigious speakers of our day. After six months in a coma this heroic little 12-year-old boy died, weighing only 20 pounds. But his spirit lives on in a Home for Infected Mothers and Babies that was built in his honor.” [iii]
The women in the resurrection story were highly honored because they also loved. The first one to whom Jesus appeared in John’s gospel is Mary Magdalene in the garden where he was buried. Mary’s love had brought her there that Easter morning to perform the rights for the dead and to mourn her Lord. When Jesus appeared to her she at first thought he was the gardener. Only when Jesus uttered her name, “Mary,” did she respond with a thrill of love, joy and recognition.
“The significance of Mary Magdalene’s report did not go unnoticed, even in the early Church.
- Consider the story told of St. Kenach, a seventh century Irish abbot. Once as he prayed in a hermitage, a woman came up with a child to seek shelter during a storm. The Abbot’s assistant, following the rules of the order, would not let her enter the hermitage. But the woman told him, “Christ came to redeem woman no less than to redeem man. It was man who betrayed Jesus with a kiss; a woman it was who washed his feet with tears. It was a man who smote Jesus with a reed, but a woman who broke the alabaster box of precious ointment. It was a man who thrice denied Jesus, but a woman stood by his cross. It was also a woman to whom Jesus first spoke on Easter.” St. Kenach, we are then told in the story, upon hearing this was so moved that he immediately came out and blessed her. [iv]
Life requires letting go, so new life can proceed. This letting go is a paradox. We have to do it. We have to let go if we are to rediscover our lives. We have to do it … and yet we cannot. We can’t let go because we can neither imagine nor do we want a life without that which has been lost. This is the paradox: we have to let go, and yet we cannot. A paradox is a problem that cannot be solved; it can only be transcended.
- Gerald May, in a little article For They Shall Be Comforted, has these words to say about letting go: I have never been able positively let go of anyone or anything I really loved. Instead, things, people, self-images, god-images, and dreams have been taken away from me. And most of them … have been let covered with [my] claw marks. Letting go is not a positive, assertive action. Instead, we can only choose to allow it to happen when – and only when – grace invites and empowers it. … The ‘doing’ of letting go is nothing more than a soft, gentle response, a tenderly-whispered Yes to an invitation and a possibility offered from somewhere beyond our own wills.
Mary needs to stop playing the “Before” and “If Only” games with her life. So Jesus tells her to let go. “Do not hold onto me – do not cling to me. Instead, go and tell.” With these words, Jesus commissions Mary into ministry – into a vocation of service – into embracing a world beyond her grief and love for him. Jesus helps Mary transform her sorrow and loss into hope and life and love for others.
- There is a Jewish folktale about a widow whose son died in a tragic
accident. The woman, crazy with grief, mourned her loss so deeply that no
one could provide her with comfort. At last a friend took her to the house
of a holy man where she made a sobbing plea. “Use your powers to bring my
son back to life. Surely you are able by prayer or some magic to induce the
Almighty to lighten my grief!”
The old man spoke kindly to the woman. “Bring me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. I will use that seed to take the pain from your life.”
The woman immediately set out in search of the magic mustard seed. She first picked the home of a wealthy family, because she was convinced that they never knew sorrow. But as soon as she spoke to the wealthy wife, she learned differently. With tears and lament, this woman began to pour out the sorrow and tragedies of her life. And the widow listened. For several days she listened and cared.
When she left to resume her search the widow visited a modest home a mile away. The experience was the same. Wherever she traveled, from mansion to hut, she was greeted with tales of sadness and sorrow. Everyone found her a willing and careful listener.
After months of travel she became so involved with the grief and struggles of others that she forgot about her search for the magic mustard seed, never realizing that it had indeed driven the sorrow from her life.
[i] William J. Bausch, The Yellow Brick Road, Twenty-third Publications, Mystic, CT: 1999.
[ii] Patricia Ditched Sanchez, “Pinpoints of light and nobility,” Celebration 3 (31): 129 (Celebration, 115 East Armour Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64111-1203) March 2002.
[iii] “An inspiration,” Homily Hints, Outline 1642, Easter Sunday – Year A, March 31, 2002 (Capsulized Communications Ltd. Dept. #770, Box 34069, Seattle WA, U.S.A. 98124) March 2002.
[iv] “Model homily,” Good News 29 (3): 98 (Good News, Liturgical Publications Inc., 2875 South James Drive, New Berlin, WI 53151) March 2002.
[v] Gerald May, “For They Shall Be Comforted,” in Shalem News, date unknown, as quoted by John R. Wallis in “Pastoral implications” Lectionary Homiletics 13 (4): 33 (Lectionary Homiletics, Inc., 13540 East Boundary Road, Building 2, Suite 105, Midlothian, VA 23112) March 2002.
[vi] Susan R. Andrews, “Why are you weeping?” Lectionary Homiletics 13 (4): 37 (Lectionary Homilitecs, Inc., 13540 East Boundary Road, Building 2, Suite 105, Midlothian, VA 23112) March 2002.
(Comments to Jerry at padre@tri-lakes.net. Jerry's book, Stories For All Seasons, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center.)