Easter Reflection

Easter Reflection
Sister Belinda Monahan, OSB, Board Member and Spiritual Advisor

Happy Easter!
 
We have made it through the long forty days of Lent, through the commemoration of the Lord’s supper, and Jesus’s passion and death to Easter!  “Let us rejoice and be glad” as the psalms tells us. 
 
And yet, today’s Gospel fails almost completely to convey that sense of joy.  It’s still dark when Mary goes to the tomb.  Seeing the stone removed, she leaps to the worst-case scenario; and who can really blame her?  She has just seen Jesus, her friend, suffer and die; it hardly seems outside of the realm of possibility that “they” would have taken his body away as well. 
 
The disciples too, seem suspended in uncertainty and confusion.  They race to the tomb, but stop just short of going in.  When the finally do go in, they aren’t certain what they are seeing.  Jesus’ death were disturbing enough.  Could this man, the one whom had they believed to be the anointed one of God really have been killed in this violent and ignominious way?  It’s no wonder that Mary and the disciples meet the empty tomb with fear and confusion rather than joy and hope. 
 
And, yet somehow, I find this confusion to be deeply comforting.  Because isn’t this how we often encounter the resurrected Christ in our own lives? Resurrection is always unexpected; always so new as to be confounding and astonishing.  It usually takes time and reflection to recognize new life in our midst. 
 
So, “let us rejoice and be glad!”  Even if it is still a bit dark out and doesn’t quite look like Easter yet.  Even if things seem chaotic and confusing.  Even if, we with the disciple do not yet understand, let us with him, look and see and believe. 
 
Happy Easter!