A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 20)
Easter Sunday, Year C – April 11, 2004
“The Resurrection”
This story, narrated by Paul Harvey, is about Philip, a nine-year-old boy who joined a Sunday school class of eight-year-olds (cf. Stories for the Heart, compiled by Alice Gray, Multromah, Publishers Inc.: Sisters, Oregon, 1996, p. 15-16). The third-graders did not welcome Philip into their group, not just because he was older, but because he was “different”. Philip suffered from Down’s syndrome with its obvious manifestations: facial characteristics, slow responses and symptoms of retardation. One Easter day, the Sunday school teacher gave each child a plastic egg that pulls apart in the middle. On that beautiful spring day each child was to go outdoors and discover some symbol of “new life” and place that symbolic seed or leaf or whatever inside the plastic egg. The teacher would open the eggs, one by one, and each youngster would explain how his/her find was a symbol of “new life”. At the appointed time, all the children “oohed” and “aahed” at the lovely symbols of new life they had hidden in the plastic eggs: flower, butterfly, leaf, etc. When the last egg was opened, there was nothing inside. “That’s not fair”, someone said. Another one muttered, “That’s stupid!” Everyone laughed. Then the teacher felt a tug on his shirt. It was Philip. Looking up, he said: “It’s mine. I did do it. It’s empty. I have new life because the tomb is empty.”
Today’s Gospel reading (Jn 20:1-9) speaks of the disciples’ experience of the empty tomb on the day of Christ’s resurrection. The evangelist John narrates: “On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb” (Jn 20:1). The discovery of the empty tomb on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, evokes the first day of the week of creation when there was “darkness over the deep” (Gen 1:1), just before God uttered his powerful word, “Let there be light!” (Gen 1:1), thus dispelling the primeval darkness. According to the biblical scholar, Celia Sirois: “John’s Prologue identified the Word that was with God from the beginning, the true light which enlightens everyone, as Jesus who was coming into the world. The passion of Jesus was the hour of darkness; and with his death, the darkness seemed to have overcome the light – until early in the morning, while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala discovered the first sign of the new creation.” Indeed, the “first day of the week”, when Christ broke forth from the tomb, is the feast of new creation. It is the glorious triumph of Light and Life over the abysmal darkness of sin and death.
The empty tomb, which Mary Magdalene saw after the stone had been rolled away, was a sign that something stupendous had happened. Peter and John went inside the tomb and saw the linen cloths that were used to wrap the dead body of Jesus crucified. The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 3 assert: “The empty tomb, which itself proves nothing, is thus clearly to be seen as a sign that hints at what has happened. John goes immediately from the appearance of the sign to faith in the reality it points to: “He saw and believed.” This is a wonderful formula. Certain things – water changed into wine at Cana, cures, lance thrusts into a dead body, and an empty tomb with shroud and veil neatly rolled up – everyone can see these things. To recognize them as signs requires an understanding informed by faith. It is attained when one sees and confesses the supernatural reality that God wishes to reveal to human eyes without dazzling them with too sudden and strong a light.” On Easter morn, the “other disciple whom Jesus loved” - “the one who arrived at the tomb first” - perceived the empty tomb littered with the burial cloths of Jesus as a sign indicating the Lord’s resurrection. Hence, on “the first day of the week”, John, “the beloved disciple of Jesus”, understood the empty tomb as a paschal sign and believed. Indeed, from the empty tomb new life sprang forth!
The last verse of John’s account of the empty tomb shows the interaction between “signs” and Scripture in the life of Christian disciples: “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead” (Jn 20:9). The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 3 explain: “If the disciples had not known through Scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead, the empty tomb would have remained an unsolved puzzle. But, conversely, the sign of the empty tomb led them to a full knowledge of Scripture.”
The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Servant of Yahweh and the Son of God, is the stupendous and radical event that infuses meaning to the entire salvation history. All the events of Jesus’ earthly life, especially his passion and death, acquired a deeper and transformed meaning in the light of his glorious resurrection. Blessed James Alberione exhorts us: “Let us contemplate Jesus, the Risen Christ. Behold, our life! Like Jesus, the Divine Master, we pass through many sufferings and trials so as to come to glory. Was it not necessary for Jesus to suffer, and by his suffering, to enter his glory? And so it is for us. The way to heaven is similar to the way of Calvary where Jesus died. But he broke forth from his tomb gloriously in the resurrection.”
The life-giving energy of the resurrection event on Easter morn wields a tremendous influence in the lives of Christians. Cardinal Jean Danielou remarks: “The power of Christ’s resurrection impinges upon our entire being. One day it will affect our dead bodies; a spark will flash out from it and touch them. It will raise them up to new life, no longer the life of mere flesh and blood but the life of the immortal Spirit who will communicate his own incorruptibility to our mortal bodies. But our soul experiences the power of the resurrection even now. When we are dead through the sin that deprives us of the divine life, our souls are touched by the risen life of Christ who revives the life of the Spirit in us.”
Indeed, the resurrection of the Lord is a dynamic reality that transforms those who unite themselves with him in faith. The Easter people formed by the sacrificial offering of Christ on the cross and his glorious rising to new life are called to crystallize and incarnate his gift of compassion in today’s wounded and shattered world. According to the religious scholar, Monica Konrad Hellwig: “It is this many-faceted compassion of Jesus that offers the key to the resurrection. It is a compassion that goes to every kind of human suffering both in healing and in challenge … In the total self-gift of his compassion, Jesus acts most divinely, yet it is the same compassion that he becomes in his resurrection most imitable. To be a follower of Jesus means in the first place to enter by compassion into his experience, with all that it expresses of the divine and of the human. And it means in the second place to enter with him into the suffering and the hope of all human persons.”
Do we truly believe in the power of Christ’s resurrection? Do we allow this marvelous saving event to transform our lives?
Do we allow the grace of God to transform our “Good Friday” experience into the Easter feast of rejoicing?
As an Easter people, are we ready to incarnate the Lord’s compassion in today’s world and be ardent messengers of the good news of his resurrection?
(Cf. Opening Prayer, Mass of Easter Sunday)
Leader: Let us pray that the risen Christ will raise us up and renew our lives.
(Silent Prayer)
God our Father,
by raising Christ your Son
you conquered the power of death
and opened for us the way to eternal life.
Let our celebration today
raise us up and renew our lives
by the Spirit that is within us.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
Assembly: Amen.
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“He had to rise from the dead.” (Jn 20:9)
ACTION PLAN: Pay particular attention to the liturgy of Easter Sunday and let the joy of the resurrection event lift your minds, hearts and entire being.
ACTION PLAN: Write an Easter card or prepare an Easter gift for a person you know who is in most need of the joy of the Risen Lord.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
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