Holy Wisdom Church
Christ is Risen [Truly Risen][3 times]
When I am absolutely certain of something, convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt, and then run into the reality that I am wrong. What do I do? Run away? Try to make the new conditions fit into my old understanding? Shut my eyes and hope that when I open them again all will be as it should be? Doesn't work, does it? And even more frustrating is when the new reality is so much better than what I was expecting, and I still can't accept it!
Welcome to the post burial and resurrection world of the friends of Christ; his disciples, apostles, and yes, the myrrhbearing women. But it's not just their world, it's our world too. We, maybe even more than our first century forebears, are conditioned mentally, physically, intellectually and spiritually, to have all the pieces of the puzzle fit together as expected. When they don't: it's trouble! We want to know that what we can touch and see and recognize is all there is to reality. Even our yearning for deeper meaning is too easily crushed by our environmental conditioning.
The myrrhbearing women prepared for the wrong event. They thought they were preparing for the right event, but they found the unexpected. An empty tomb. But what did that mean? They didn't know and couldn't process it so they fled. There could have been a theft. That was one theory. What was the reality?
After the empty tomb, Jesus then proceeds to appear to many of his friends in various places and over an extended period of time. If they won't believe the empty tomb, then personal appearances were necessary. Why? Because his physical presence on earth had to end, but his work had to continue. And that work was for those he left behind. He needed to energize them for the work still to be done. So they had to see and believe that the Good News was for real, that he did indeed rise from the dead. As St Paul says elsewhere: If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then we Christians are the most pitiable of people. But he did rise! And many people saw him after his resurrection. The myrrhbearers' fear was turned to joy. And those witnesses were so certain of what they saw and experienced that they were willing to proclaim the Good News, even to the point of dying for it.
As the angel said: "Why seek the living among the dead? Why weep for one beyond corruption? Go! Proclaim the news to all who love him!"
The work those first bearers of the Good News undertook is an on-going process. And that includes us. Just like them we have to overcome the skepticism of our minds and be open to the reality that is beyond the boundaries of our physical senses. And once that new "reality" sinks in, then, like the myrrhbearers, the joy they experienced and spread, also opens up for us a new life in Christ. And living that life with fidelity can be the opening to others.
To do this is to live out the admonition we just heard in the reading from the first letter of St. John. If you don't love the neighbor you can see how can you say you love the God you cannot see. So as we often say, and can never say too often, the God of love, who is love, not only wants our love but wants us to share that love with others.
Christ rose from the dead to bring us that joy of knowing that God's love for us is so great that it is both why were were created but also why God wants us to be with him forever. It begins here, and never ends.
Christ is Risen!
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