“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” Luke 24: 1-12
The gospel-reading for this Easter Vigil liturgy is Luke’s account of the Resurrection of Jesus. If there is one thing for which we ought surely give Luke credit, it is his consistent, counter-cultural assertion that the very first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus were the women disciples who had followed Jesus to Calvary, had kept vigil by his Cross and had supported him by their presence. With the exception of John, all the male disciples who had walked with Jesus and had sworn their loyalty to him, had deserted him when he most needed them. Even by the time that Luke wrote his Gospel, women were still regarded as unreliable witnesses. It was for that very reason that the men to whom they disclosed what they had seen and heard at the empty tom were reluctant to believe their testimony. They dismissed their words as nonsense. In fact, the Greek word Luke used to describe what the men thought of the women’s report was leros, from which we get the word “delirium”.
But let’s not be too quick to discredit the men closest to Jesus or to label them as total incompetents. Presuming they were privy to the women’s plans to set out very early on the Sabbath to anoint the body of Jesus, we can conclude that they must have been puzzled by what looked like a lack of common sense on the part of the women. The men must have been asking themselves just whom did the women expect to find wandering in the graveyard at the crack of dawn. And what were their chances of encountering a man who was ready, willing and strong enough to assist in rolling back the stone from the entrance to Jesus’ tomb? Could it be that Luke was using the stone as a symbol of the hopelessness that had seemingly stifled the hope of all those who had given their allegiance to Jesus?
There is also a puzzle for us to solve in Luke’s account of the confusion he saw that had descended on all the disciples, men and women alike. While the women had distinguished themselves through the support they had given to Jesus by their faithful presence, they were hardly expecting a resurrection if they were heading off to anoint the dead body of their beloved Jesus.
How quickly did events change for that small group of women! Initially they experienced a mixture of bewilderment, confusion and surprise at seeing the stone rolled back and the tomb empty, and then, terror at the sight of two angels who confirmed that Jesus was alive and affirmed what he had repeatedly stated: “Why look among the dead for someone who is alive? He is not here; he has risen. Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee: that the Son of Man had to be handed over into the power of sinful men and be crucified, and rise again on the third day?”
It comes as no surprise that the men, still numb with fear from the experience of the previous few days and with shame at their own cowardice, dismissed as the ravings of excitable females what the women told them of their experience at Jesus’ empty tomb. At least Peter went in search of confirmation of the cause of the delusions he suspected had overtaken them.
While none of the male disciples seemed to have the graciousness to say eventually to the women: “You were right!”, it clearly took some time for the reality of Jesus’ resurrection to sink into them all, men and women alike. The story which immediately follows this Easter Vigil gospel-reading is that of the two disciples who bumped into the risen Jesus on their journey to Emmaus without recognising him.
Despite Jesus’ earlier predictions of his resurrection, it took the best part of some time for its reality to sink into the minds and hearts of the disciples, even though two of them had seen and conversed with the risen Jesus. After all, who would have easily accepted that Jesus, the Messiah would have had to endure torture, and death by crucifixion and then would be raised from the grave three days later? Most of us have had a lifetime of learning and faith-development to come to terms with all that. The early disciples of Jesus had to survive in an environment that was hostile to Jesus, his story and all who gave their allegiance to him. Consequently, they really needed time. Many of those disciples had seen Jesus raise to life the only son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7: 11-17) and the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official (Luke 8: 49-56). Moreover, they had probably heard tell of how Jesus had raised his good friend Lazarus from the grave (recorded in John 11: 1-44). Yet they had struggled to believe that God could have raised Jesus to life.
We now hold in faith that the Resurrection was God’s vindication of Jesus and of all he did and taught, including the submissive way in which he endured insult, ridicule, torture and death. The resurrection is also confirmation of the divine directive recorded by various Evangelists in their accounts of Jesus’ Baptism and his Transfiguration: “This is my Son, the Chosen/Beloved. Listen to him.” (Luke 3: 21-22; 9:28-36)
If we dare to give our allegiance to the Jesus whose resurrection we celebrate today, the onus is on us to listen intently to the message writ large for us in his life, teaching and resurrection and give witness in our daily living to what we have learned. Resurrection can be a challenging experience.