ABBOT ELIAS DIETZ, O.C.S.O
Homily – Easter Day Mass – April 16, 2017
Easter Joy and the Second Creation
In the first creation, as we heard in the long Genesis account at the Easter Vigil, God filled the world with light, with the sea and the land, with fish, birds, animals, people, and everything imaginable. That first creation was full of joy, because God saw it as good. And all around us we have a lovely reminder of that original joy in the beauties of spring.
But today, at Easter, we celebrate a new creation, an even more joyful one, because it cannot go bad or be ruined or wear out, as the first creation inevitably does. And this joy is tied to no particular place. In fact, its main symbol is the empty tomb. The emptiness itself announces that joy.
It’s fairly easy to recognize the joys of the first creation, because we feel them with our senses: we delight in sunshine, children, friends, food—everything that reminds us of life and abundance. But what about the spiritual joy of Easter? Is it something you can feel? Do you need special senses to perceive it?
A good place to look for an answer is the experience of Mary, Peter, and John in the gospel we just heard. Later, when the Risen Lord actually appears to them, the gospel tells us they are filled with joy. But here, as they discover the empty tomb, the ultimate symbol of Christian joy, it is not so obvious what they are feeling.
For Mary Magdalene, Jesus had been her healer, her teacher, the anchor of a new-found stability, the man who gave her life meaning. In her grief she is desperate not to lose contact with him, even if it means only through his dead body.
Peter is still weighed down and smarting from the events of the previous days, including his betrayal of Jesus. He was already bewildered before getting news of this inexplicably empty tomb.
John, according to his own gospel, had followed Jesus closely throughout his Passion. He was at the cross with Mary to hear Jesus say, “behold your son; behold your mother.” He had been the close friend of Jesus, and is now overcome with a sense of loss.
The empty tomb brings them together. And here is where the lesson in Christian joy begins for us. We see them discovering the facts and reacting, each in his or her own way. Mary runs to tell; she wants help; above all she needs Jesus. Peter runs, not so nimbly it seems; he has to function as the leader, but does so reluctantly; he has some reason to dread Jesus just now. John moves the quickest; he is all eyes and ears; his understanding only gradually catches up with his love for Jesus.
The Church leaves us with this scene as it is on Easter morning, with no further events, with no clear answers. The overwhelmingly joyful reality is there in the emptiness of the tomb. The three first witnesses come as they are. It is less a matter of them discovering the empty tomb than of them being caught as in a snapshot in the light of a Resurrection they do not yet fully perceive.
Christian joy is the same yesterday, today, and forever: it finds us; we don’t find it. Like Mary, Peter, and John, we move with the flow of life, seeing, reacting, and understanding, each of us according to his or her own capacity. And there, in the midst of the flow of life, the light of life catches us.
The joy of Easter is not something we have to stir up within ourselves. It is certainly not a kind of reward for having performed well during Lent. Rather, the long discipline of Lent serves to sharpen our spiritual senses and heighten our awareness. We set aside some of the joys of the first creation, in order to be ready for the new kind of joy of the second creation. As was the case for Mary, Peter, and John, the best we can do is get up early and be alert.
To wish each other Happy Easter is to wish each other this special kind of joy. It is to wish each other that—in God’s time and in God’s way—the splendid light of the empty tomb will catch us by surprise.
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