Easter Day 2025
Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9
For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.
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While this is a naturally joyous day for all Christians, the first followers of Jesus experienced the first Easter in a much different way. It’s helpful to approach what we celebrate at Easter from the perspective of those who were first touched in these events. We do this in order to confront some of our own doubts that may dwell in the back of our minds as we read the accounts of Christ’s resurrection. Most of the narratives about Easter make it clear that Jesus’ followers were not expecting what they experienced. In the synoptic gospels (Mt Mk Lk), the women go to the tomb to anoint a dead body; the dispirited disciples leave Jerusalem, convinced that the great prophet in whom they believed was dead even after hearing the announcement of the resurrection (admittedly from women… and who believes in the credibility of women?) The other disciples shut themselves up in a room afraid of the authorities.
In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, we hear the lament of Mary Magdalen, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have laid him.” This anguished cry is not just a prelude to the joyful announcement of the resurrection that will happen later. It is the perennial cry of both believers and non-believers as we struggle to make sense of our lives in the light of the Gospel and the claims of Christ’s resurrection. Like the disciples who first ran to the tomb, “we do not yet understand the scripture that Christ had to rise from the dead.”
For some, Christ’s resurrection from the dead is pure fantasy. They write it off as an invention of overly imaginative Jewish fishermen who couldn’t cope with the death of their leader. For others—even those who call themselves Christian—the resurrection is an event that took place two thousand years ago, but which has little relevance for today. Even many who consider themselves fervent Christians and who adamantly profess belief in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, are hard pressed to explain the impact of the resurrection of Jesus on their lives here and now.
To paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, many like the first disciples have “had the experience but missed the meaning.” We miss the meaning when we fail to see Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection as the pattern for our own lives. We miss the meaning when we stop our ears to those who point to the presence of Jesus today in the poor, the sick, the excluded, the refugees, those suffering from war, famine and psychological violence. We miss the meaning when we fail to see God’s presence in the birth of a child or in a loving relationship with other human beings. We miss the meaning every time we receive communion, saying “Amen” to the monition, “the Body of Christ,” and then return to our daily lives as if the Eucharist was not given to us to transform us into the very presence of Christ for the world.
I think it is significant that the only person in today’s reading who sees the empty tomb and who immediately believes in the Resurrection is John, the beloved disciple. According to the Gospel of John, he sees and believes in the resurrection even before Peter. We really don’t know much about this beloved disciple, other than there was an intense relationship of love between John and Jesus. It was because of this relationship that he saw immediately what the others did not see: that because of God’s amazing grace, because of his love for Jesus it was not hard for him to hope and to believe that there was now a life transformed where there had been death. Because of his love he more readily sees how Christ’s suffering and death has given way to new life, and that this suffering, death and resurrection has become a pattern for his own life and those of Christ’s disciples. It is in this way that the death and Resurrection of Christ has changed our lives and drawn us into the orbit of God’s grace. For this is what we celebrate at Easter, our own share in the resurrection. This is how we now understand the scripture, “that Christ had to rise from the dead.”
On behalf of the Viatorian Community in the United States and Colombia: Happy Easter!
