We read in today’s Gospel that when the beloved disciple entered the tomb, he saw and he believed. What did he see? Not Jesus, certainly, only the empty tomb with the grave clothes. The Gospel tells us that up to this point they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead. The disciples were in a state of shock. Their world had been shattered as they witnessed the arrest of Jesus and His death on the cross. It took more than the evidence of an empty tomb to convince them that Jesus was truly risen from the dead. The empty tomb was the beginning of a process that led to faith. Gradually, over a period of 40 days, they had a variety of experiences of meeting the risen Lord, which enabled them finally to proclaim with conviction, as Peter says in today’s first reading. The relationship that the disciples had with Jesus began with an invitation to follow Him. They heard His words; they witnessed His miracles; they saw how He related to people with great love and understanding, and the conviction grew that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God. What this meant was severely challenged whey they witnessed the betrayal of Jesus, His arrest and torture, and the finally His death on the cross. They only really came to understand who Jesus was after the resurrection, when the Spirit came to lead them to complete truth.
Easter is the feast of all feasts. The feast of Christmas did not even exist for the first two centuries of the Church’s life, but Christianity is inconceivable without Easter. The risen Lord appears to those who have received the gift of faith, that gift of the Holy Spirit which brings us into a relationship with Jesus. When we believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we are enabled to die to the things of this world and come alive to the things of God. Our whole sense of values changes, because our life is now hidden with Christ in God. We begin to see with the eyes of Christ so that we can know His Father as our Father and feel His compassion for the needs of the world around us. Like the disciples, however, we have to grow in our faith. Like them, we have to follow the call of Jesus, to listen to His word, to allow a relationship with Him to develop. Without Jesus, our world is an empty tomb. Today let us open our hearts to the gift of the Spirit who will enable us to see what is not visible to the eyes of our body, and to believe that the Lord is truly risen and living among us.
