The Tomb Is Empty

He died, but he’s not dead. That’s the great mystery, the paradox, of Easter. It’s the story we celebrate every year. On one level, it never changes. It always ends the same way. The stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty. We can’t explain how it happened, yet we want to be told again and again that it did happen. As St. Paul insisted to the Corinthians, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is empty, vain. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all” (I Cor. 15:19). Our faith, however consoling it might be in a desperate moment, is ultimately pointless if the tomb is not empty. Today’s Gospel matters!

Today, perhaps more than ever, we need to hear the Easter story one more time. So many around the world are still living through the agony, the darkness, and the yet unknown consequences of a pandemic for which there is no end in sight. Millions of Ukrainians and Russians are suffering today through unimaginable horror, terror, and brutality that threatens to grow only worse. There is a prisoner in Texas in his 40s who has already spent 27 years of a life sentence in solitary confinement, entombed in a space smaller than a compact car parking space with no human contact. But even for us in the abbey, who enjoy a peaceful and undisturbed life, by comparison, an “ordinary” day is not immune from loss, failure, or the shadow of death. For instance, we know:  that real relationships are fragile, and they are at the core of our life’s meaning; or that one day all seems well, but the next day everything can change with a medical diagnosis we were not expecting; or that we find ourselves unprepared for the gradual diminishment that seems so normal for our aging brethren all around us, but not for us (who are also ineluctably aging)—the memory is going, the plumbing no longer works so well, joints we didn’t even know we had ached, and suddenly something as simple as getting out of a chair can be a challenge.  Or we find ourselves worrying about someone in the community, or in our family, who carries enormous burdens that we barely understand, and we are at a loss as to how to help them. Or perhaps someone we have depended on is no longer there for us: we are estranged, or they leave, or they die. Even on a seemingly ridiculous level, it is certain that one day we will lose the job in the monastery that we have come to identify with, either because we are needed to do someone else’s job, or we simply can’t manage our own anymore. This is usually a disturbing loss . . . .

We all carry within us “stories” of change, fear, loss, and death—sometimes life-shaking, and other times merely life-wearying—but all of them demand a response from us on the level of faith. Specifically, faith in Jesus, crucified and risen. These are the stories we bring with us today to this Eucharist and are the reason we want, and always need, to hear the Easter story one more time. It was such a “story” that took Mary of Magdala to the tomb in this morning’s Gospel, to attend to her dead Lord, only to find his body gone . . . .

What I would like to suggest to you is that the empty tomb lies within each of our stories. Regardless of what happens next in our personal story, the meaning (or promise) of Easter is that the ending has already been written. Indeed the “stone” has been rolled away, and our inner tomb is empty—which is a way of saying that our life has been guaranteed by God. The stone has been rolled away, not so that Jesus could get out, but so that we can peer in, and believe that he lives right now, bringing us to new life, drawing us into his own life-giving light. Every day we are called to look again at our personal lives with Easter faith.

Concretely, what might that mean for us? It means we no longer have to look at the past and say, “If only.  It means we no longer have to look at the future and worry, “What if?”.  It means we can look right into the “tomb” of the present moment and find not a “corpse” but how blessed we are by the One who is now with us always and everywhere, within us and taking us into his embrace, giving us new life by pouring his Spirit into our hearts, and new hope by ever interceding for us at his Father’s right hand.

Yes, Easter means one vast, unimaginable blessing! And always close to home. Not ethereal or for pious moments. Not general, but as concrete as the one we heard about in the Refectory several years ago when we were listening to the book, Barking to the Choir, by the Jesuit Greg Boyle. After working three decades with gang members in Los Angeles, in and out of prison, Fr. Greg developed a profound sense and reverence for the “stories” each of us carries, within which the “empty tomb” lies.  

At Camp Paige, a young man named Efrain is about to make his First Communion. The volunteers rustled up a starched white shirt and a thin black tie for him to wear with his county-issue jeans. He was nervous as he waited for his Mom and brother to arrive, and so was I. Many a time a homie has waited for parents who have promised they’ll be there, only to plummet into disappointment, and I fear the same is about to happen to Efrain. It’ll be hard to wait much longer and delay the start of Mass, I think to myself, when his Mom suddenly arrives, holding the hand of a young man. It turns out this is Efrain’s older brother, who is clearly autistic and struggling to acquaint himself with this strange place. They get settled, Mass begins, and Efrain beams. We are not too long into the service, however, when his brother has a meltdown, the likes of which, really, no one has ever seen. It is so full force—screaming and kicking and the flailing of arms and legs—that it takes all of Efrain’s physical and emotional power to escort his brother outside. Through the gym doors, I could see his mother calmly sit down with him on a bench, waiting for the fit to pass, but the screaming continues, unabated. Efrain, granite-faced and solemn, makes his First Communion. His Mom and brother witness none of it.

     Afterward, when I approach Efrain to check in on him, I expected rage, a heaping of blame and frustration that his day had been ruined because of his brother. Instead, Efrain starts to gently sob as he points to his brother, who is methodically rocking back and forth on the bench.

     “He has never sinned,” he says, trying to gather himself so he can continue. “He is closer to God than any of us.”

     His mother, close by, hears him and adds in Spanish, “He is the blessing of our lives. We thank God for him every day.” Efrain nods in agreement.  (p. 61)

In so raw a moment, Efrain and his mother know that all their lives have been “guaranteed by God.” Truly, the Tomb lies empty within each of our stories as well—so let us be present, peer in, and accept the gift that Christ is risen from the dead and is at this very moment “the blessing of our lives.” 

Painting by Piero della Francesca. Easter homily by Father Dominic.