"He is Not Here. He has been Raised!"

"The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism," Gustav Dore

One of the consistent acknowledgements in all the Gospels regarding our celebration today is a twofold proclamation. All the Gospels have it. First, “He is not here”; and second, “He is risen.” This is what the disciples discover when they go to the tomb of Christ on that first Easter morning, and it has been the Church’s joyful proclamation ever since. And these two phrases are key to our life as Christians. I’ll start with the second one first:

“He has been raised.”

This is the original Easter message. The Greeks continue to proclaim it as their Paschal greeting: Christos aneste! The One who suffered and died on the Cross for our sins, the One who took on Himself all that we are in our humanity, the One who was laid in that tomb and sealed with the stone – He is risen! Alleluia!

The joy of Easter consists in the fact that with the Resurrection of Jesus, our hope for eternal life now dawns. We, too, are called to this Resurrection; and, in fact, we already share it through our Baptism. If the Cross of Jesus was God’s judgment on the world, then the Resurrection is God’s sentencing. In spite of our sin, God came in Jesus and redeemed us so that we can experience that definitive sentence from the Father. “I did not create you for sin and death; I did not create you for the tomb and decay. Rather, I created you for life; I created you for Myself. And now, in my Son, you are mine forever!”

This is what is proclaimed in the Easter Vigil’s Epistle: “We who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death … so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might have newness of life.”

The second Easter acknowledgement is not as exciting on the surface – at least, maybe not to us two thousand years away. However, it is just as profound and just as important.

“He is not here.”

The empty tomb is what the holy women disciples encountered on Easter. Emptiness does not strike me as exciting. However, when we consider Whose tomb this is and what He promised, this empty tomb is the greatest emptiness ever experienced by humanity! He is not there, because He has been raised! Of all the tombs of the great men and women of history – all of which we can visit – all of them contain those great men and women. They are not empty. But the tomb of Jesus, visited by millions each year, is.

He is not here.

Every Holy Saturday morning, I have made it my practice to visit my dad’s grave and pray my Office. I lay out my blanket, brush off his marker, and open my breviary. I miss my dad, of course.  There, six feet or so below that grass, my dad’s body is there, going through all the natural processes that we all will. As I stay there, the more I consider that fact – that dad is buried there, that I cannot visit him with mom and my family – I become sad. Anyone would.

My mother once said as we prayed at dad’s grave on the first Father’s Day after he passed that “We know he isn’t here. We know that he is wherever we are.” To that, my precocious niece responded, “Well, Grandmom, we are here, so that means he is here too!” My mother and my niece are not theologians, but at that moment, they were expressing something that another great theologian once said. St. John Chrysostom in the fourth century said, “She whom we love and lose is no longer where she was before. She is now wherever we are.”

How can this be true? Is it just something nice we tell ourselves to ease the pain of grief? No. Again, as we celebrate Easter, we are drawn to witness Baptism and to recall our own. Through baptism, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. You and I are united, together as members of that same Body that St. John belongs to, that St. Mary Magdalene belongs to, that our Blessed Mother belongs to, that my mom and dad belong to.  We are the Body of Christ; made so by Baptism. Wherever Jesus is we are.

And He is not there in the tomb.

As heirs to this wonderful message, we cannot allow ourselves to be consumed by dwelling on the tomb – ours or others.  Only Jesus matters for us! His empty tomb is an invitation for us to look up, look beyond the hardships, disappointments, sufferings, and sorrows of this world and to see the new life that God now offers. The first sight of that empty tomb did not draw the disciples into morbid grief. Rather, it drove the to announce to others that Jesus was not there; that He has been raised up!

Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is risen today! Our victory over sin and death is won, because it is His victory. This is the mystery of the Church – the presence of Christ, shared by His disciples wherever we gather to proclaim Him. Our faith demands that we acknowledge both of these things: He is not here in the tomb – so where will He be for you today? He has been raised – and so have we.

The joy of Easter is the heart of our faith and the fuel for our mission to share Christ with the world. Like Peter and John, like the holy women, like so many faithful Christians throughout history, we must acknowledge and proclaim: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Alleluia!