Easter 2020
Matthew 27:57-60
57 When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathæa, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple:
58 He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.
59 And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,
60 And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.
Holy Saturday starts and ends at the tomb. No flash of light. No announcement. Simply the awareness that what has been is now gone. Mary Magdalene, in the dark, notes that the stone has been moved. John, at the door, notes that the wrappings have been left behind. Peter, in the burial place, pronounces it empty of the Christ whose burial clothes have been left behind. And they are left to tell the others.
That’s about all the sight of Resurrection that anyone ever really gets, come to think of it. Darkness and an empty tomb. The notion that what has been taken is clearly alive. A burning memory and an unfinished truth. Even today, then, the Easter message to all of us is still the same as it was to Mary Magdalene and to Peter and to John. If the glory of God is to be revealed, then it is up to us to say so and to prove it by our own beliefs.
The world is still in darkness and the wrapping clothes have been left behind for us to sort and show in our own lives the powerful presence of His. We must all, at the end of this Lent, live our lives now so that God is not put us to the test so that all the communities of the earth can find blessing in us so that the expectation of the in-breaking of the spirit of Jesus is possible so that Jesus can heal us of our own blindness so that the death of this world can be brought back to life so that the Truth is made disarmingly clear in us so that the glory of God is revealed today. Alleluia.
