For Easter Sunday of any year in the lectionary, there is a choice in Gospel reading: either the empty tomb passage in the Gospel of John or the empty tomb passage in the Gospel of that year’s lectionary. In Year A, as we are in, it’s the empty tomb passage in the Gospel of Matthew. However, given that the Gospel of John is the emphasized reading, every year we tend to read Jn 20:1-9. That is what I will include below.
There are commonalities and differences
between the four Gospel Resurrection passages.
Fr. Geoffrey Plant’s homily for today, which I will not embed here but you can find here, provides
a nice summary of the similarities and differences. But I want to point out a very important
detail that all four Gospels point out.
The Resurrection occurs on “the first day of the week.” Check out Mt 28:1, Mk 16:2, Lk 24:1, and Jn
20:1. Each Gospel goes out of its way to
declare the Resurrection occurred on the first day of the week. Why is this important? We know from Genesis that God created the
world in six days and rested on the seventh day. Christ’s Resurrection starts creation
anew. We are newly created in Christ,
and so the new creation starts on the Eighth Day, “the first day of the week.” All four Gospels want to make this
emphatically clear. From the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2174-5:
2174 Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week."
Because it is the "first day,"
the day of Christ's Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the
"eighth day" following the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation
ushered in by Christ's Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of
all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord's Day (he kuriake hemera, dies
dominica) Sunday:
We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the
Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from
darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose
from the dead. [St. Justin, I Apol. 67]
Sunday- fulfillment of the sabbath
2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it
follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance
replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the
spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God.
For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done
there prefigured some aspects of Christ: [I Cor 10:11]
Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death. [St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magn. 9]
So do not think that Sunday is the Sabbath. As Catholics, we don’t really have a Sabbath; we have a day of worship, which is considered the eighth day or the first day of the week.
Today’s Gospel:
On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb
early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the
tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus
loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the
tomb,
and we don’t know where they put
him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went
out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other
disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial
cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the
burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his
head,
not with the burial cloths but
rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went
in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb
first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the
Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.
~Jn:20:1-9
Archbishop Edward Weisenburger takes us through the Lenten to season to culminate
with the real meaning of Easter.
Archbishop Weisenburger:
You see, an Easter
without a Lent, a resurrection without a crucifixion would be empty, empty of
meaning, devoid of grace. In short, the cause of our Easter joy rests in Jesus’
triumph over death, not his escape from it. He was not an ancient Robin Hood
who slipped through their wicked hands and lived to preach another day. No, he
was crushed. He was crucified. But we're made joyful today. A joy that can't be
robbed from us because the very arms stretched out on the cross are now raised to
baptize, to confirm, forgive, embrace, to heal, to lift up, and above all to
feed us with his body and blood. A body and blood shattered and shed on
Golgotha but made whole on Easter Sunday. Brothers and sisters, again, today's
celebration, the real Easter, is not about happy go lucky baskets of colored
eggs or bunnies or being spoiled at grandma's house, pleasant and good as many
of those things may be. But no, in the end, they're not the real Easter. And
for the adults listening, for those, as
Jesus would say, who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see, well, you'll never really get Easter until
you first realize again that Jesus did
not make a journey around betrayal, suffering, and death, but rather a
journey that overcame betrayal,
suffering, and death, going right through them all the way to a radically new way of life that we call resurrection.
We are certainly joyful today but let us not forget how we came to this.
For a pastoral homily on Easter Sunday, I found Fr. Joseph Mary of the
Capuchin Friars to be superb.
Fr. Joseph Mary:
Why is the Christian
hope founded on the resurrection? Because
Jesus Christ has not simply been reanimated. He's destroyed death itself. He swallowed up the grave in the victory of
Jesus Christ. Suffering sin, loss, grief, and death and no longer have the
final word. There's something waiting
for us beyond the gray rain curtain of this world. There's an unapproachable light waiting for
us that no pain or loss or terror of death can ever diminish. But do we live? Do we live out of the power
of the resurrection? Do we truly live with the freedom of the children of God? Or are we like those little birds living like
slaves, never realizing that we're free?
If as St. Augustine said the faith of Christians is the resurrection of
Christ. Then we should have a joy and a peace nothing in this world can rob
from us because every suffering, every sadness, every loss, every injustice and
fear, every struggle with weakness and sin, every conflict, it's all temporary.
The night will end, and we'll see that the darkness was only a passing thing
like a fog blown away by the light of morning.
Even death has no power over the Christian. And so as you die and your life slips away,
as you draw near that brilliant light, who will come to meet you? The grandparents
you mourned? Those brothers, sisters, and friends whose loss brought you such
grief. Those children you never had the joy to bear, they'll come to meet you
on the threshold of heaven. And there will be tears, tears of unrestrained joy.
For the old order has passed away,
“For the old order has passed away.”
Make sure you listen to all eight minutes and fifty seconds of that
brilliant homily. It is well worth it.
Sunday Meditation: “Then
the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and
he saw and believed."
This is a great Easter hymn, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia.,” performed
by King’s College Choir, Cambridge.
Jesus Christ is risen
today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy
day, Alleluia!
Who did once, upon
the cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our
loss, Alleluia!
Hymns of praise then
let us sing, Alleluia!
Unto Christ, our
heavenly King, Alleluia!
Who endured the cross
and grave, Alleluia!
Sinners to redeem and
save, Alleluia!
But the pain which He
endured, Alleluia!
Our salvation hath
procured, Alleluia!
Now above the sky
He's king, Alleluia!
Where the angels ever
sing, Alleluia!
Sing we to our God
above, Alleluia!
Praise eternal as His
love, Alleluia!
Praise Him, all you
heavenly host, Alleluia!
Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, Alleluia
