April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
REFLECTION ON RESURRECTION
Stop staring into an empty tomb
Stop staring into an empty tomb
For me, this message was deeply rooted in reality, even though so much mystery still surrounded my life at that time. I knew what had happened, but I did not know what was to come.
This is also the heart of the message in the resurrection stories in the Gospel of John: Jesus shows us that, to experience life, we must hold both reality and mystery. Faith is about believing, even when we don't see or fully understand our life and its mystery as it unfolds before us.
The Gospel writers have an intriguing omission from their resurrection accounts: None of them attempt to describe the exact moment of resurrection. They don't say how it happened or how Jesus might have experienced it. The facts, or reality, of the resurrection moment is left mysterious.
The author of John's Gospel shows that Jesus' resurrection broke into an entirely new form of existence which opens for humanity -- and, indeed, for the whole universe -- a new and fuller dimension of life's experience, one which is continually evolving.
Maybe this is why Jesus says to Mary Magdalene: "Do not cling to me; I have not yet ascended." We can be tempted to hold onto the familiar and the safe, but the life of a disciple is to continually detach in order to keep moving forward, even if what we are facing is the unknown.
Those, like Mary Magdalene, who experienced the resurrected Jesus were pushed beyond what they knew, and forced to confront an entirely new way of being. They had experienced the trauma and death of their friend, yet were being asked by the risen Lord to move beyond that into mystery and hope.
When we have been through a "death" experience -- a difficulty, a trauma, a time of transition -- we are forever changed, even if we spend some time trying to go back to how things were, like Mary Magdalene, who stayed by the tomb weeping.
We eventually come to know that things aren't quite as they were and will not be again. This takes adjustment and growth. It means claiming our reality while allowing the mystery to unfold.
We carry the scars of our own lives, like the body of the resurrected Jesus, but somehow those wounds are enfolded in whatever new life and being emerges. Fullness of life, then, does not mean trying to reclaim what was lost and then try to live again as if everything is now OK; fullness of life as a disciple of Jesus is to continually grow, evolve and embrace the mystery.
This is one of the most important lessons of Jesus' resurrection.
When confronted with the difficulties of life, a very human response is to look for a way out and not face the reality of the situation. We would rather stare into an empty tomb, like Mary, than face what is happening.
However, the risen Jesus shows us a new way, one which moves with confidence and certainty through this reality and into hope and fullness of life. If the resurrection can teach us anything new, it is that the best way out is always through.
(Sister Victoria is a Sister of Mercy from the United Kingdom who is currently living in Albany, teaching religious studies, sociology and bereavement studies at Maria College.)[[In-content Ad]]
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