Word of the Week

Easter Sunday

Tomb: Mnemeion (Gk.): meaning “grave; tomb; sepulchre”

The empty tomb is the lasting image and icon of Easter morning. The affirmation of belief from “the other disciple” (John) suggests that the removal of his body could not have been just of human accord but only the power of Christ risen from the dead (CCC 640). The “bonds of death and corruption” could not hold the body of Christ (CCC 657).  The Catechism highlights in Part Two: Celebration of the Christian Mystery, that the altar in Eastern Liturgies is seen as the symbol of the tomb; the place of Christ rising (CCC 1182).

The aforementioned Greek term for tomb can be found 42 times in the New Testament with John using it on 14 occasions, more than any other NT author.  John’s treatment of the tomb is extensive in his account of the Resurrection of Jesus, using it 9 times, but it is in his application of one previous occasion that sharpens our understanding and significance of the Resurrection.

John likes to strategically deploy stories from the life of Christ to prepare us for something greater to come in the salvific plan of Christ. For example, the Wedding Feast at Cana directs our attention to Calvary (cf. Jn.2:4, 19:26) as does the Miracles of Loaves and Fishes (Jn.6:1-14) direct our attention to the exponential value of Christ as “the bread of life” (Jn.6:48). The gospel reading from Easter Sunday, the solemnity of solemnities, is no different.  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ in John chapter 20 is “prepped” for the reader in John’s explication of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead in John chapter 11.  Let us consider the link between these two accounts that offer us insight into gift of the Resurrection.

Christ’s late arrival to see his friend Lazarus was no “miscalculation”, rather intentional (Hahn and Minch, 39). It afforded Christ the opportunity to demonstrate his power as the Resurrection and the life. Recall his response to Martha after her confession of faith in Christ as Lord, “I am the Resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn.11:25-26).  Upon raising Lazarus from the grave, witnesses believed in him (Jn.11:45) and certainly would have been impacted upon hearing of Christ’s Resurrection months later. Furthermore, John makes a point to highlight that the dead man (Lazarus) came out with his hands and feet bound with bandages (Jn.11:44). It was only after Christ’s decree to untie the bandages that he was freed to go. In the Resurrection account of Jesus, the napkin was rolled up in a place by itself (Jn.20:7). Christ, by his own authority, unties the bandages that restrained him. The gift we receive in Christ’s rising to new life is the gift of the Holy Spirit and Christ himself. Only by the authority of Christ do we receive authentic freedom and only by a life in Christ are we able to live out this freedom in service to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Let us not wear the old cloth of sin and licentiousness, rather the new pure cloth of Christ (Col.3:1-10).

In this Easter season, it is imperative that we see the symmetry that lies between the empty tomb and our Amen upon the reception of the Eucharist. Christ has risen to give life to the world, so it is that we receive Christ in the Eucharist to bring Christ to the world. Our life must be an etching of Christ onto the page that is the daily drama of good verses evil, truly--an extension of Christ’s own life!

I offer to you this week, an extensive quote from Theophilus of Antioch’s letter to Autoclyus, a non-believer of the Resurrection, as a point of reflection into the essence of the gift of the Resurrection.

“Then, as to your denying that the dead are raised. You say, show me even one who has been raised from the dead, that seeing I may believe. First, what great thing is it if you believe when you have seen the thing done? God indeed exhibits to you many proofs that you may believe Him. For consider, if you please, the dying of seasons, and days, and nights, how these also die and rise again. And what? Is there not a resurrection going on of seeds and fruits, and this, too, for the use of men? A seed of wheat, for example, or of the other grains, when it is cast into the earth, first dies and rots away, then is raised, and becomes a stalk of corn. And the nature of trees and fruit-trees, is it not that according to the appointment of God they produce their fruits in their seasons out of what has been unseen and invisible? Moreover, sometimes also a sparrow or some of the other birds, when in drinking it has swallowed a seed of apple or fig, or something else, has come to some rocky hillock or tomb, and has left the seed in its droppings, and the seed, which was once swallowed, and has passed though so great a heat, now striking root, a tree has grown up. And all these things does the wisdom of God effect, in order to manifest even by these things, that God is able to effect the general resurrection of all men. And if you would witness a more wonderful sight, which may prove a resurrection not only of earthly but of heavenly bodies, consider the resurrection of the moon, which occurs monthly; how it wanes, dies, and rises again. Hear further, O man, of the work of resurrection going on in yourself, even though you are unaware of it. For perhaps you have sometimes fallen sick, and lost flesh, and strength, and beauty; but when you received again from God mercy and healing, you picked up again in flesh and appearance, and recovered also your strength. And as you do not know where your flesh went away and disappeared to, so neither do you know whence it grew, Or whence it came again. But you will say, From meats and drinks changed into blood. Quite so; but this, too, is the work of God, who thus operates, and not of any other.”

--Theophilus of Antioch

Primary Texts Consulted

•  Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
•  Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
• Hahn, Scott and Minch , Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Gospel of John, RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco : Ignatius Press, 2003.

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