We have journeyed together over the past three days, following Jesus as he washed the feet of his disciples, following Jesus as he transformed the Cross into the victory of God’s love and the triumph of his mission. Now we stand by the tomb with the three women. Mark tells us how, as Jesus was crucified, these women looked on from afar, the same women who followed Jesus closely and served him when he was in Galilee. Now they had come to the tomb, bring spices to pay their last respects.
I would like to suggest that we see in these women images of ourselves, people who both follow Christ, at times getting quite close to him and serving him, yet at other times keeping our distance. The women followed him on his journeys through Galilee, when he impressed the crowds with displays of healing and great power and his preaching of the kingdom of God. At that stage the ministry of Jesus was on a roll. It is easy to follow a successful Jesus who demonstrates his power in a very tangible way and we want to become part of the action.
As the opposition to Jesus grew, people began to hold back. When the crunch came his closest disciples ran away – a sign of that deep tendency within all of us to be fair-weather friends of Jesus, to follow him only when the conditions are right. As Jesus dies on the cross his male friends are nowhere to be seen, and the women watch at a distance.
And so, the women come to the tomb. Jesus’ project is over, like so many initiatives that promise so much but get snuffed out by malice or expediency or politics or just personal weakness – all the things we heard about in the Passion story yesterday. Now there is nothing left for the women except to say their goodbyes, and try to move on. Yet even to do this will provide hassle. There’s a big stone to be pulled away, and there’s no man around strong enough to shift it!
And then, the first surprise from a God of surprises. “The man who can” has already arrived and is sitting in the tomb. The stone has been rolled away. The risen Jesus as we know would not have needed the stone to be rolled away in order to get out of the tomb, so the stone has obviously been rolled away for the sake of the women. They need to know that there is hope where no hope seems possible – the first stage of their journey to faith in Jesus’ resurrection.
Then comes a second surprise. The young man in the tomb says, ‘Jesus is not here, he is risen’. These words are full of mystery indeed. They are words intended to challenge and provoke faith. Can the women dare to believe that despite appearances the dead one is not actually confined to the world of the dead?
But the surprises are not over yet. ‘He is going to Galilee’, says the young man, ‘and you will see him there’. But can the women believe, in spite of appearances? If they do believe, will they act on their belief, and go back to Galilee, go back to the beginning, in the hope of seeing Jesus?
Our Gospel reading tonight leaves out the very last verse of the original gospel which speaks about the reaction of the women. Their reaction was one of amazement and fear. Mark never actually tells us that they went to Galilee to tell the disciples. The story ends hanging in the air, so to speak.
Instead Mark invites us to remain on that knife-edge between belief and disbelief, to go back and reflect on what we have heard these past three days. Can we believe that in Jesus’ washing of his disciples feet and in his crucifixion we can see the love of God? Or is there something in our culture, or in our experience, that prevents us from seeing that? Can we open our minds enough to believe in a God of surprises, even little surprises, who sends people to roll our tombstones away and keep us from falling into cynicism or despair? In the end, do we trust Jesus enough to love him? Or do we love him enough to trust him? In the end it all comes down to trust. Once we trust Jesus, then the empty tomb will no longer be an enigma. Like the cross and the footwashing it will be transformed into a sign that evokes our trust and confirms it.
‘Go to Galilee, you will meet him there’. If we trust Jesus and take a step towards him, he will come to meet us. For us, going back to Galilee means recapturing our former trust, going back and listening to his words in the gospels and the rest of the Scriptures as if for the first time – allowing the familiar to become new for us. Going back to Galilee means revisiting the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of the Church that we have not understood, trusting that he will reveal its meaning to us in his good time. Going back to Galilee means allowing God to roll away the tombstones that are our prejudices - the things and the people we have made up our minds about, and trusting the light of the world to show us all these things again in a new light.
Footwashing, death and resurrection – taken together they make up what is called the Paschal Mystery, the great mystery of Christ’s ‘Passing Over’ from this world to the Father, through death to definitive, glorious life, where there is no more sin, no more tears, no more sadness. What we have reflected on in the past three days is renewed for us every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, at the heart of which we proclaim, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again”. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist together we are touched by the Paschal Mystery, we are invited to draw ourselves into that union of purpose and love that is the union of Christ and his Father; we are invited to accept the hand of God’s friendship, and extend our hands in friendship to one another, as Jesus extended his on the Cross to all of us.
