"On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark..." (NAB Jn 20:1)
Most of us have been where Jesus’ followers find themselves at the beginning of the Easter gospel. We’ve dwelt in deep darkness, felt lost and bewildered by the loss of our beloved—someone or something we’d made the foundation of our lives. That place feels stark and desolate; there, we feel helpless to move forward because we cannot see our way. We are blinded.
Coming to faith, in John’s gospel, is often described as moving from a place where darkness blinds us to a place where we see “differently,” as God sees. We see the same pattern in today’s gospel, which begins “while it is still dark”: a predawn darkness of spirits aching; the disciples plunged into blind confusion; a spiritual darkness of profound loss of love and hope brought on by the execution of Jesus.
"...[she] saw the stone removed from the tomb." (Jn 20:1)
At this point, it’s surprising that the story doesn’t describe Mary looking further, into the tomb. Instead, Mary models for us what the gospel recommends we do when we feel confused: She runs back to the faith community, where she has felt Jesus’ love before.
"So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, 'They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him.'" (Jn 20:2)
Her shocking words echo through the community. At this point, Peter and “the Beloved Disciple” race to the empty tomb, where there is now enough light to see empty cloths laying in place of a broken body. They wonder, “What does this mean?”
"The other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed." (Jn 20:8)
It is no coincidence that it is the disciple who is named “beloved” in this gospel who first “sees and believes” the meaning of the empty tomb. Then, guided by their love of Jesus, the disciples are able to begin to shift a few pebbles from the blinding wall of their fear, stirring among them what eventually becomes an avalanche of faith.
