Sunday Gospel Warm-Up

The Empty Tomb

John 20:1-9

In that first Easter morning, Peter and the other disciple run to Jesus’ tomb and find it as Mary described, empty. We can be sure the question running through their minds was why would anyone take his body. Tombs in that era were considered unclean. You did not enter tombs because of disease, evil spirits, and the stigma of death. The hint of what is going on is when the disciple hesitates at the entrance probably out of fear. When he finally enters, we are told, he comes to belief. Belief it seems is intimately connected to the tomb. Maybe in describing this scene, John is trying to teach us that we have to embrace the tomb, the place of death, to experience a new life. The old self must die to a new faith in the risen Christ. Dying whether that be a physical death or a spiritual death is never a place where we want to be and we run from it. Yet, what God is saying to us is that it is through embracing the “tombs” of our life, we find fullness of life.