Homily: 3rd Sunday of Easter – Cycle A
Back in 2015, I was blessed to participate in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which I made in thanksgiving on the tenth anniversary of being cancer free (oncologists concur that anyone who is in remission from cancer for ten years is, statistically speaking, “cured”). During that pilgrimage, we had the opportunity to visit the Holy Sepulchre (aka, Jesus’ tomb). It was Easter week for us and Holy Week for the Eastern Orthodox Christians, so these sites were pretty busy and the line to get in for the visit was long and… well… let’s just say it wasn’t as orderly as we North Americans typically expect. A fair amount of pushing and a good number of people just pushing through to the head of the line because they simply weren’t going to wait was what we experienced. I add this detail simply to note that our wait to make our visit wasn’t exactly conducive to prayerful meditation in anticipation of approaching this holy place.
Nevertheless, when it was my turn to enter (and each is only given a short time to spend within the walls of the tomb), I was moved emotionally to be there and to think that the human body of our Lord Jesus laid in that place (the original stone on which he laid beneath the stone that we were able to touch with our hands). I remember thinking about how good it was simply to be there and to experience the place. As embodied creatures, the physical encounter with a place or a person creates strong connections that help us stay connected, which is why visiting places that are important to us (holy sites, homes and homelands of our ancestors, historical sites for our country/community, etc). These create powerful bonds that reinforce our sense of who we are: both as individuals and as communities.
There was one thing, however, about which I wasn’t conscious when I visited the place, and only thought about upon reflection of my visit long after, and it was this: I don’t remember experiencing any amazement that I didn’t find Jesus’ body there. Now, I know that sounds silly to say. Who we are as Christians rests solely on the truth that Jesus rose from the dead and so, of course, his body would not be there. Over the centuries, an innumerable number of persons have stepped into that ancient tomb and found it exactly as I did: empty of any human remains. So again there is no reason why I should have been amazed not to have found a body there. My reflection, however, led me to ask myself the question: “Should I have suspended my belief for a moment, so that, as I entered the tomb, I could have had an experience of what the first Christians experienced: that is, the bewilderment of finding the tomb empty?”
As I reflected more on it, I thought that this isn’t so far-fetched of a question. I mean, we make pilgrimages to the burial sites of saints all the time, and upon arrival we expect to find the saint’s mortal remains present there. If we go and find they are not there, we’re disappointed, because we assume that the body was taken away by someone for some purpose (does that sound familiar to any story we’ve heard recently?). We’d be amazed and bewildered, however, if we were then told that the body wasn’t taken, but rather that the saint had been raised to life again… wouldn’t we? Yet we visit the Holy Sepulchre not expecting to be amazed… We go with a profound sense of reverence, of course, but we don’t expect to be amazed at what isn’t there… and we’re not… but shouldn’t we be?
In the first reading from today’s Mass, we heard Peter proclaiming the empty tomb as proof that Jesus is the one of whom King David spoke when he wrote about the “holy one” whose “flesh” will not “suffer… to see corruption”, and he argues that David could not have been talking about himself. Peter says, “one can confidently say to you about the patriarch David that he died and was buried, and his tomb is in our midst to this day.” In other words, Peter is arguing that David couldn’t have been writing about himself because his body is still in his tomb: a good argument to make because any of his listeners could have visited David’s tomb and (presumably) opened it to see that his remains were still there. Jesus’ empty tomb, however–and his appearance in the flesh to his chosen disciples–is the bewildering proof that Jesus is unique among all who have gone before him (and, for us, all who have come after him and who will ever come after him), in that the laying of his dead body in the tomb was not the end, but rather the precursor to a new beginning that no one could have imagined. The argument from the empty tomb (which any of his hearers could also have gone to see) bewildered his hearers, but moved them to consider the truth of the resurrection.
This is now the third Sunday in a row in which we’ve heard how Jesus’ disciples were completely bewildered when they experienced or heard about the empty tomb. On Easter Sunday, we heard how Mary Magdalen found the tomb empty and ran back to say… what? “It’s all true! He is raised!!!” No, she didn’t say that, did she? She said, “They have taken the Lord and we don’t know where they’ve put him!” Then last Sunday, we heard Thomas say that he wouldn’t not believe the testimony of the other disciples unless he saw the risen Jesus for himself. In other words, the empty tomb and the testimony of others wouldn’t be enough for him. Then today we see these two disciples, Cleopas and the other, on the road who express that, in spite of the bewildering testimony of the women who first saw the empty tomb and the other disciples who went and found it as they described, still expressed doubt: “We were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel”, they said. In all three (and other stories like them throughout the Gospels) we are reminded that the idea of the resurrection was so incomprehensible to Jesus’ disciples that they could not believe it at first… and this, in spite of the fact that Jesus told them to expect it! Their minds could not imagine that anyone would rise from the dead and so their experience of the empty tomb was to be amazed and bewildered by the sight: so much so that they didn’t understand what had happened.
Sisters and friends, I wonder if we haven’t forgotten the utter strangeness and power of the resurrection. In other words, we’re just not shocked and bewildered by the idea any longer. Let’s just take a moment to imagine that it was someone close to us who was raised from the dead–to imagine someone came to us and said, “I went to your mother/father’s gravesite, but she/he was not there. And an angel appeared to say that she/he had been raised!” It would be impossible to believe at first, right? But then, once we accepted the truth–and especially after we (presumably) encountered her/him–wouldn’t we be uncontainable in our impulse to tell others about it? Of course we would! Sisters and friends, our Easter celebration is meant both to renew our amazement and bewilderment at the fact of the resurrection, and our impulse to tell others this good news. Perhaps, in order to experience this, we need to think again about how shocking it is to find the tomb of Jesus empty; and then to open ourselves to experience him, as the disciples on the road to Emmaus did, in the unpacking of the Scriptures and in the breaking of the bread: an opportunity available to us every time we celebrate the Eucharist.
Sisters and friends, next to the incarnation of God, the resurrection of God incarnate is the strangest, most bewildering, and most hope-filled and joyful truth we proclaim as Christians. May our continued celebration of these radical truths lead us to give joyful testimony to them in our daily lives.
Given at the Monastery of the Poor Clares: Kokomo, IN – April 19th, 2026
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