Jesus’ death is torture for me!
I prefer his life to his death....
While he was alive,
he brought only three dead persons back to
life.
Now, thanks to his death,
all the dead come back to life,
and trample me
as they rush out through the gates of hell.
The 4th- century monk-poet St Ephrem the
Syrian puts these words of grievance into the mouth of Death personified. Death
is finally aggrieved! Alleluia! These inspired words express well the fear that
troubles priests and Pharisees the day after Good Friday: “This last imposture
would be worse than the first”, they say. At the very moment they believe they
have finally gotten rid of Jesus, the authorities too sense how much more
dangerous he might be dead than alive. Without realizing it, these staunch
defenders of tradition are the first to experience the disruptive novelty
imposed on Death by this dead man. Death is now robbed of the ability to
silence its victims by plunging them into the “land of forgetfulness” (Ps
88:13). Alleluia!
Death, then, is no longer now the realm of
silence and forgetfulness. By his death, Jesus restored the dead to speech,
enabled them to speak again to our memory, to converse with us in the secret
room of our interiority.
But this is still not enough: Jesus has not
only taken away from Death its power to silence, but also the privilege of
having the last word. The mystery of Jesus’ death has forced Death itself open
and put a loud question mark after its irrevocable finality. Jesus has cracked
Death open and forced its rigor and haughty pride to sit humbly in the
expectation of unheard-of newness. Alleluia! Because of the ever-greater power
of the way Jesus has loved us into the very jaws of Death, Death, though real,
is no longer an absolute. When a God embraces Death out of love, Death is
wonderfully and shamefully relativized and can no longer be a tyrannical
tormenter. The power of Jesus’ love turns Death into a tame, whimpering
creature:
Death and life have contended
In that combat stupendous:
The Prince of Life, who died,
Reigns immortal.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
With what trepidation priests and Pharisees
must have waited for the third day! Perhaps more than the guards at the tomb,
they will have kept vigil on that night, tormented by the absurd doubt that
wrested from Death its last word. They wonder in a daze: What if, just maybe,
that outlaw really will rise again? … Then they shake their heads: Impossible!
Yet that unmentionable doubt would not let them sleep. At the same time, NO! It
would not be enough for that motley crew of fishermen to steal his body to make
the crowd believe that their Teacher had risen. Where would that ragtag gang of
bumpkins have found the courage to offer up an empty tomb as the only proof of
resurrection? Only gullible people would believe it! Yet, though they cannot
admit it, there is obviously more behind their request for guards to keep tight
watch over the tomb of the Nazarene. They feel that slim but persistent doubt (What
if? What if?) worming its way through their conscience and capable of picking
the lock of Death’s omnipotence.
This doubt is not yet faith, much less
hope; but it is enough to keep Death from continuing to be the despot it had
always been. Death, after tonight, can no longer, ever again, be the definitive
door slammed on the abyss of despair, perdition and nothingness. Death, just
maybe, can now become the gateway flung open to the newness of Him who is the
Resurrection and the Life (Jn 11:25).
This is the night
When Christ broke the prison-bars of death
And rose victorious from the underworld.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Bergognone, Christ Risen from the Tomb, c. 1490, oil on panel, 45 1/16 x 24 1/8 in., National Gallery, Washington. Homily by Father Simeon.
