Our Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! He is truly risen! And the power of the Resurrection imparts to us New Life – life that is new in every way. The coming of Easter does not signal a return to business as usual, resuming the life to which we had become accustomed before the penitence of Lent. No, the Resurrection animates us with an utterly new way of living. You see, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is not the mere reanimation of a corpse as we witnessed in raising of Lazarus from the dead. The New Life we receive in the risen Christ is not a reprise of old thought patterns, bad habits, sinful behaviors, or worldly desires.

Mary Magdalene approached the tomb “on the first day of the week… early in the morning, while it was still dark.” The triumph of Resurrection is the vanquishment of darkness – as was sung in the Easter Vigil’s great hymn, the Exultet – the overcoming of every impulse of sin and evil in the world. The Resurrection of Jesus destroys the tyranny of Satan whose earthly reign enslaves human beings through the absolute exaltation of self. That’s what sin is in its most basic form, the worship of self over and above the one true God. Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb alone but, at the sight of the rolled-away stone, she runs off to find Peter and John. That is, she rushes off to unite herself to the community of the Church. For the New Life that the vision of the empty tomb quickens within her – and within us – is ecclesial, not merely personal.
 
Why does Mary Magdalene run to experience this event in the company of the Apostles? First of all, because she knows that there she will find the meaning behind the mystery she has encountered. She exclaims: “We don’t know where they put him!” That is to say, Mary Magdalene relies on the Apostles’ leadership in faith to take charge in this dilemma and to get to the bottom of the problem. Mary Magdalene commends herself to these good shepherds to find, not a lost lamb, but the missing body of the Lamb of God!

Moreover, Mary Magdalene’s take on the occurrence presumes the worst: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb.” It appears that maybe someone has stolen his body! She depends on the teaching authority of the Apostles to clarify confusion and to dispel doubts. She will trust the magisterial judgment of the Apostles more than what she has seen with her own eyes.
 
And so, more running occurs; this time it’s the feet of Simon Peter and John (“the other disciple whom Jesus loved”) doing the running. John gets there first (and why not? He’s younger and faster than Peter!) but did not enter the tomb out of deference to Peter’s primacy. Yet we are told that when John does enter the tomb, “He saw and believed.” Like Mary Magdalene, we entrust ourselves to the magisterium of the Church to gain the interpretation and illumination that unite us to the saving power behind these mysterious events.

The fact that Mary Magdalene runs to the Apostles and that the Apostles run to the empty tomb emphasizes the missionary essence of the Church. Their running is a sign that they are following the promptings of the Spirit of truth who leads them on the way of salvation. In the same way, all the members of the Church to whom this truth has been revealed and entrusted – and that includes you and me today – must vigorously go out to meet the desire for salvation in all people so as to bring them the truth of the Gospel as well. This is the work of evangelization to which all of us have been called by our baptism.
Mary Magdalene could have kept her experience of the empty tomb to herself. But the maturity of her faith compelled her to unite herself to the leadership, the magisterium, and the evangelizing of the Church. For it is not as solitary individuals but as covenanted, relational persons that we experience the ultimate power and joy of the Resurrection within the community of the Church. In union with the Church, the early morning of Easter becomes the Eternal Day of Resurrection! 

With a brother’s love in the Risen Lord and Mary Immaculate,

Deacon Dave, O.F.S.
T    In Persona Christi Servi