We have worked hard to be ready and open to this spiritual moment. We have awakened in Lent and Holy Week to the pain and sorrow of being human. We’ve acknowledged private longings and desires unworthy of our God or of our calling in his Name. We’ve admitted having disappointed each other and having disappointed our Father in heaven. We’ve tried to turn around from seeing only ourselves, only our private expectations and not your kingdom come.
And now the moment has come to be blessed, not receiving as the world rewards but receiving as only God can bestow with grace and abiding love. With Mary, timid and alone, we peer into the place of our deepest fears, the Empty Tomb, and the Empty Tomb does not disappoint us.
Resurrection is upon us! He is here! He is with us! Not forgetting but forgiving, Love comes to restore and raise a fallen Earth up to heaven. As the stone rolls away from the Empty Tomb, our Father in heaven has opened wide the sluice gates of hope, and washes away sin and death.
Though the detritus of ten thousand years of human sin remain and the clean-up as if forever remains, this divine initiative of love endures.
“He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good, that we might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood.”
As the favorite Good Friday hymn goes on to proclaim – “There was no one good enough to pay the price of sin, he only could unlock the gate . . . of heaven and let us in.” The gates of hope on this Easter day are opened to us, the people of God.
“O dearly, dearly has he loved! And we must love him too, and trust in his redeeming blood, and try his works to do.”
The clean-up of humanity continues in the work he has given us to do - the work of proclaiming God’s grace and triumphant suffering, uplifting others as we ourselves have been uplifted - this all remains. Yet like volunteers on a coastal shore spoiled by an environmental catastrophe, whose labor to outsiders seems minuscule and pointless, we are not disheartened by this daunting task. We have seen the hope of God. We have seen the world restored to the balance of life in harmony with creation and with God as intended from the beginning. Our visions have been made possible by this resurrection, this life outlasting death and destruction.
Because we look into the Empty Tomb with Mary and Peter and John, and are turned around ourselves by the wash of resurrection, we are no longer without hope. We now know the rest of the story, and it’s good, way good, awesome good! We stand with Mary in the joyful company of God’s people who believe. Our hearts are warmed and our spirits uplifted. We hear Mary as she exclaims to others still held captive by their sorrow and grief - “I have seen the Lord!” He is with us! He is here!
