An Easter Reflection

An Easter Reflection / Happy Easter! By Fr. John Cef Ledesma

Jesus’s passion and death initiated a process by which the old order was passing away and a new order was dawning.

Matthew reports many strange events at Jesus’s death: darkness, an earthquake, and holy people rising from their tombs. Similar events occur in Matthew’s story of Jesus’s resurrection.

“Towards dawn on the first day of the week,” Mary Magdala and the other Mary, the women who had stood firm through the tragedy of the Cross, go to visit the sepulcher of Jesus. The setting of the following events, “towards dawn” on the first of all Easter Sundays, promises the reader that the women will find more than a sepulcher. A new light is breaking into the darkness of the night.

For a moment, the women on their journey are forgotten, as a series of “end-time” events are reported as happening at the tomb. In a way similar to the events surrounding Jesus’ death on the Cross, there is a violent earthquake. An angel of the Lord descends from heaven, rolls away the stone and sits upon it. Through his angel, God enters the story. The description of the angel, “his face was like lightning, his robe white as snow,” adds the terror of the moment, and the guards collapse to the ground like dead men. At the cross, the Gentiles came to faith in Jesus; here, the guards are part of the anticipated “end-time” description.

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The angel speaks to the women, assuring them that they need not fear. They no longer need to search for the crucified one. He has been raised. The tomb, the place of death, is empty. However, it is not enough to gaze in awe at an empty tomb. The women are commissioned to carry the Easter proclamation to the disciples: “Go quickly and tell his disciples, `He has risen from the dead, and now he has risen and will appear to you in Galilee, it is there you will see him.”

The women recognize they have been touched by the action of God: it is the reason for their awe. They are also filled with great joy at the privilege given to them. But on their way back to the disciples, the risen Jesus meets them, and they fall down and cling to him. He greets them and repeats almost exactly the same message as the angel, commissioning the disciples to go into Galilee. However, there is an important difference. While the angel told them to speak to Jesus’ disciples, Jesus himself refers to them as my brethren. It has not failed disciples who must go to Galilee; it is a group of people who once again belong to the family of Jesus.