Being well connected
Easter Sunday (A), April 20, 2014 – Acts 10, 34a. 37-43; Col 3, 1-4; Jn 20, 1-9
Think of what is above (Col 3, 2)
The least of us has risen from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God. Now we await his glorious coming and welcoming words, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.” And we recount his marvelous deeds, striving to go about doing good, so that our aspiration that the Father’s will be done on earth as in heaven may be realized.
From seeing the empty tomb Peter and the beloved disciple inferred that Jesus had risen. But they did not fail to notice the burial clothes there and also the head covering, rolled up in a separate place.
Basing themselves, then, on the little they had seen, the disciples came to understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead—in contrast, Mary Magdalene, seeing only that the stone had been removed from the entrance of the tomb, immediately supposed, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb” (it would be funny if she, madly in love, had imagined herself for a moment taking the corpse away and keeping it). And it is said particularly of the beloved disciple, appropriately nameless since he is every true believer, “He saw and believed.”
No, I have never seen the Lord. Otherwise I would stop writing reflections and making guesses about God and his designs, at the risk always of turning into a false prophet who makes up visions. I believe, and I do not insist on seeing to believe.
But do I really believe, so that I am counted among those proclaimed blessed by the Risen One? Do I truly see from the point of view of faith in such a way that I am ready to go with Jesus and die with him? Do I have the single-minded devotion of Mary Magdalene, taking Jesus as the only necessary certitude and setting aside logical certainty?
Do I see reality with Jesus as my point of view, so that everything takes on a new and fuller meaning and I do not go following my own devices, imposing what I like or forbidding what I dislike, projecting my fears, worries and insecurities? Do I have etched into my memory the Vincentian saying (Coste I 295) that “we live in Jesus Christ by the death of Jesus Christ and that we ought to die in Jesus Christ by the life of Jesus Christ and that our life ought to be hidden in Jesus Christ and filled with Jesus Christ and that in order to die like Jesus Christ it is necessary to live like Jesus Christ”?
Do I, moreover, take notice—in order to believe in Jesus, that the Risen One is none other than the one who was crucified and buried—of the signs of the crucifixion and the resurrection, namely, of the spurned and held in no esteem that have been left behind? Do I welcome them with tenderness and respect, not leaving them lying at the door like dirty rags all scattered outside?
And to pass from death to life, does this not mean to have deep and tender feelings of mercy and to remember those who are frequently left dismembered from the body of Christ, our good connections to him?
Ross Reyes Dizon
Tags: A Vincentian reading of the Sunday readings, Ross Dizon, The empty tomb