In tonight’s Gospel, we hear Mark’s account of the resurrection, just as we heard Mark’s Passion on Palm Sunday. Notoriously Mark’s account of the resurrection, at least in what is known as the short version, ends very abruptlyand some might think it does not sound much like an Easter Gospel at all.
In this account, when the Sabbath is over, very early on the first day of the week just as the sun is rising, Mary of Magdala, who we last met yesterday afternoon at the foot of the cross, standing there, weeping, watching and listening to the Lord, comes now to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus with two other women. If we come with them, we like them will be fretting about who will move the heavy stone away from the tomb.
As often in life their fretting is unnecessary, the stone has been rolled away; it isa relief! But then to their dismay there comes the real problem not the one they had anticipated. This problem is of course that there is no sign in the tomb of the body of Jesus; there is only a mysterious young man in a white robe, who says to them something very strange, a message they hardly seem to take in. You are looking for Jesus but he is not here. Their reaction is the perfectly normal one in the face of something shocking and frightening. They turn on their heels, run and say nothing to anyone. The last verse of the gospel, thoughthe lectionary misses it out, is: ‘And the women came out and ran away from the tomb because they were frightened out of their wits; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid’.
It does not sound much like the Easter gospel we expect, there are no strong statements of faith in the risen Jesus, just the fear of these women, scared out of their wits; we will have to wait until tomorrow, Easter morning, for the first professions of faith from disciples. There are no wonderful and profound resurrection appearances of the Lord here tonight in this gospel; we will have to wait into next week, into the gospels of the Easter Octave for these. We never read of these, professions of faith and appearances, in the Easter Vigil, beautiful though they are and important to us.
Instead tonight we just have in the middle of a gospel of shock, fear and running away, the most stark, the most basic, the most elemental proclamation of the Easter Gospel. It is put into the mouth of a mysterious young man in a white robe and it is most simply this: Jesus is risen. I think at its heart the task of an Easter preacher is the same as that of the young man in the white robe, it is to say Jesus is risen.
Why are we here? We are here because God created us as we heard in the first reading of the Vigil. We are here because he offered up his Son for us as Abraham was prepared to offer his son Isaac, as we heard in the second reading. We are here because God saves us from the terrible hold of the powers of evil over us, as God rescued the people from the dread forces of Egypt, so we were told in the great passage from Exodus. We are here because God loves us as a husband eager to marry a bride: that came in this phrase from Isaiah ‘your creator will be your husband’. We are here, as we heard in tonight’s reading from Baruch because God wants us to walk with him, that we might make our way to the light.
God wanted to walk with us. At the beginning of creation God wanted to walk with us. Remember God made us on the sixth day, that is Friday, and he saw what he had made and he saw that it was good. He made us and he saw it wasvery good, so it was a good Friday, that sixth day, on which God made man. He wanted to walk with us in a garden, in the cool of the day. But we walked away; we walked out of the garden. That is our tragedy, our fall. Yet as these Vigil readings have shown, we may have failed, we may have walked away and out, but God’s love has not failed. In Abraham, in Moses, in Isaiah’s seeing of a marriage bond and in Baruch’s promise of a walk back to God, there are hints and promises of a salvation.
This salvation is finally enacted, when God died for us. He died for us likewise on the sixth day, the day that he had made us, the day that he died for us,another Good Friday. Then as again on the first Sabbath, he rested, the King slept. But we are here above all, because there comes another day, a new day, an eighth day, rising out of and completing the frame of these days and weeks of ours, this frame of our earthly life. This is the new day, the eighth day in which according to the word of the young man in the white robe Jesus Christ is risen,he is risen from the dead, he is alive with a new life, and he creates now in us, even in us, that new transformed life, that new risen life of Easter.
BIDDING PRAYERS FOR EASTER VIGIL
31 MARCH 2018
Celebrant: Sisters and brothers in Christ, in this holy night may we pray in faith and hope, to God our Father who wills to raise us to be with his Son in glory.
Reader: Let us pray for those baptized and received into the Church this Easter, that they may walk with us in the light of faith that will bring us all together to everlasting life.
Lord in your mercy
Let us pray for Br Benedict, monk of Ampleforth, as he prepares for his solemn profession, God willing, on 5th May this year. Let us pray for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life and for vocations to this monastic community.
Lord in your mercy
Let us pray for the repose of the souls of all those who have died and for the comforting of those who mourn, that they may find in the Gospel of the Risen Christ their joy and their consolation.
Lord in your mercy
May Mary, mother of our saviour and cause of our joy, help us on our pilgrim way that we may come to the glory of the risen life in heaven
Hail Mary
In silence let us bring our own intentions to God
Celebrant: God our Father, you sent your Son to save us and to unite us in one body through his death and resurrection. May we always know your truth and live in your love through Christ our Lord.
