Easter Sunday- Meeting the Risen Lord

Easter Sunday 

Meeting the Risen Lord

John 20, 1-9

 According to the account of John, Mary of Magdala is the first to go to the sepulcher while it is still dark, and disconsolate, she finds it empty. She is missing Jesus, the Teacher who had understood and healed her; the Prophet she had followed faithfully to the end. Whom will she now follow? This is how she complains to the disciples: “They have taken the Lord from the grave and we do not know where they have laid him?”

 These words of Mary could express the experience of not a few Christians today: what have we done to the Risen Jesus? Who has taken him away? Where have we put him? The Lord in whom we believe, is he a Christ full of life or a Christ whose memory is slowly fading in our hearts?

 It is wrong to seek” proofs” to believe more firmly. It is not enough to have recourse to the teaching authority of the Church. It’s useless to study lengthy explanations of theologians. To encounter the Risen Lord, we must above all look deeply into our hearts. If we do not find him there within us, we will not find him anywhere else.

 A little later, John describes Mary hurrying here and there in search of information. And, when she sees Jesus, blinded by sorrow and tears, she does not succeed in recognizing him. She thinks he is the gardener. Jesus asks her just one question: “Woman, why do you weep? Whom are you looking for?”

 Perhaps we too ought to ask ourselves something similar? Why is our faith sometimes such a sad one? What is the real reason for the lack of joy among us? What is it we Christians today are looking for? What do we long for? Are we looking for a Jesus we need to experience full of life in our communities?

 According to the story, Jesus is speaking to Mary, but she does not know that it is Jesus she is speaking to. It is then that Jesus calls her by her name, with the same tenderness in his voice he had for her in his journeys through Galilee: “Maria!” Mary swings around quickly: “Rabboni, Master!”

 Mary encounters the Risen One when she feels personally called by him. It’s true. Jesus shows himself to us full of life when we feel called by our own name, and we hear the call he makes to each of us. It is then that our faith grows.

 We will not revive our faith in the Risen Christ by fostering it from the outside. We will not encounter him if we do not seek a living contact with his person. Probably, it is the love of Jesus we come to know through the Gospels and seek personally in the depths of our hearts, that can best lead us to an encounter with the Risen Lord.

Open paths to faith in the Risen Lord

José Antonio Pagola

translation By Rev. Fr. Valantine de Souza S.J.
origin photos Google