Gospel John  20  1 – 9

Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance.

She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”

Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself.

Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.

Gospel Reflection

Happy Easter – and how is it for you? Did you wake up with the brightest of new dawns and a joyful dawn chorus? Did the bleakness of Lent disappear with the knowledge that the Resurrected Christ is remembered this day?

I have to say that I didn’t. Some of the Lenten feeling, which actually preceded Lent, had not gone away. Yet I took part in every step of the journey that the church offered me and, I thought, more besides. I was disappointed – I try not to believe in magic – but I was hoping for some.

Then I heard the morning’s Gospel and it came to me. It is not a Resurrection heralded with fireworks or even a multitude of angels; it is not Jesus walking on air into Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple; it is not a mass revolution of faith and belief.

There is such a quietness to the Resurrection; the natural dawn – no special star or eclipse; the stone rolled away – not blasted. The God of the weak, the unwanted, the unclean, the unworthy still will not put himself above us. He is, even more so, where we are. Jesus simply came back as he left – with the humility of a servant – and he went home.

So, if you didn’t find him in the pomp and circumstance of the Easter Mass perhaps, like me, you were looking in the wrong place. Perhaps you need to sit quietly and seek him in your home, in your place, in your inner God space. Because, if you ever need him – that’s as far as you will need to look.