Homily

The Sabbath has passed; finished are the days of men. A new day has come. True, it begins with sadness, just as our life is often sad. It is a sad sunrise over the tomb. Jesus’ tomb is not special; it is among the tombs of other men and women. If anything, there is an even greater sadness: in that tomb not only is the body of a friend, but also finished is the hope for a new kingdom that had burned in the heart of that small group of men and women who had followed Jesus all the way from Galilee. If only the world had the courage to stop near the tombs! It would feel deep in its very chest a knot of anguish, a sense of fear, in front of the death of hope and of the future. Cemeteries? Not only. Today there are entire countries that have become like mass graves, cemeteries of often-innocent victims of oppression, violence and war. In the face of such a panorama, many flee just as Jesus’ disciples had done. Only three women, the Gospel of Matthew writes, remain. The first is Mary of Magdalene, a bit of a peculiar woman who had been freed from seven demons. The other Mary is the mother of James and the third, Salome. They are three poor Galilean women who came to Jerusalem behind Jesus. Now, lost and shaken by the sad events that had just happened to their Teacher, they know to do nothing else but go to the sepulcher. By dawn they are already there, concerned about how they can enter the tomb. A heavy stone, just like the heavy stones that crush the life of the weak, sealed the sepulcher. However, as soon as they arrived, they saw that the stone had been rolled away and they saw an angel dressed in white sitting to the right of the tomb. They were afraid, but the angel announced the gospel of the resurrection: “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”

This is the first Easter. It is the first Easter for a small community of three lonely, foreign and scorned women. Once again we see fulfilled what Jesus had said: “The poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.” This is the first Easter. But even if it were such for only three women, it was not a private event. It was for all of the disciples: “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee.” From there the disciples were to announce the resurrection to all men and women to the ends of the earth. The resurrection is a proclamation that shakes the entire life of men and women. It shakes it from top to bottom so as to give it a new face; it removes the heavy stones that burden the hearts of men and women to render them free; it illuminates the dark that weighs on life so as to manifest the radiance of mercy. Who was once crucified now rises. That dead man on the cross is now clothed anew in the power of God. And the cross that once symbolized powerlessness has now become the power of God in the world. Rather frequently in the iconographic tradition of the Oriental Church, the cross carries on one side the crucified Jesus and on the other the risen Jesus. In the apparitions of the Risen Christ, it is the crucified that appears resurrected to manifest the strength of his love for us: just as he had been crucified for us, so he had been risen for us.

This is the message that the women receive from the angel and that causes both great joy and fear. Joy because they intuit that Jesus will be able to stay with them, but also fear for finding themselves immersed in the day of God. They fled from the tomb. They did not remain there where they had been. They were overcome by haste. Yes, no one can hesitate in front of the proclamation of the resurrection. There is haste, a haste to announce liberation to the prisoners of evil, to those who are entombed in wickedness, to those who are slaves to pride and hatred, to those crushed by hunger and war. Even three poor women can do this. Precisely they, despised and considered as little more than nothing, were the first sent out to announce the Gospel. The disciples will have to go to Galilee, to the farthest boundary of Israel, to the margins, where the region of the pagans begins: here they will meet the risen Lord and from here they will go out along the paths of the world. Galilee is the immense, impoverished outskirts of the world that awaits the proclamation of hope; but perhaps it is also the heart of each of us who waits to the see the Lord. “Christ is risen, indeed he is risen!”