There’s a quality of mystery to the story of the resurrection: the quiet and the dark of that early morning, the unexplained removal of the rock, the exploration of the tomb and the absence of the body. Why are the shroud and grave clothes still at their place? There’s Mary’s encounter with the angels, and then with the man who she presumes to be the gardener. “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (Jo. 20:13), Mary says, not yet clued in. Unanswered questions; misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge; a level of concealment present on that first Easter Day.
The quality of mystery comes with the territory. Mary and the other disciples are in what we might call a liminal space, a border region that marks the boundary between one reality and another. On one side are the disturbing elements of everyday existence: death is the end, raw power is everything, and truth… truth is what we make of it. At least, this is how the world accounts our reality, as it cranks up the killing machine that marks our particular moment. We all know this territory, the dominion of death as St. Paul calls it (cf. Rom. 6:9), because it’s the one that presents itself to us every day: just check out the headlines. We’ve been catechized in it so effectively that, like Mary, we can scarcely discern the alternative.
Easter Day places us in a different space, in a region where another reality is present. Hence the note of concealment, of mystery, as if, in the half-light of morning, we cannot quite make out the landmarks of this new existence. We have trouble distinguishing what’s right before our eyes. It says in our Gospel that the disciples, by and large, didn’t get it, “for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (Jo. 20:9).
It’s precisely here, in the border region of this Easter Day, that transcendence breaks through and new possibilities beckon. The Irish poet Seamus Heany describes such a space at the end of one of his poems: “You are neither here nor there, / A hurry through which known and strange things pass / As big soft buffetings come sideways… / and catch the heart off guard and blow it open” (“Postscript” in The Spirit Level). “Neither here nor there”: that’s us on Easter Day; caught off guard and with our hearts blown open by the presence of the Lord.
It’s as hard for us to grasp as it was for the disciples on the day of resurrection. Jesus says to Mary after she has recognized him, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father” (Jo. 20:17). It’s hard to grasp because Jesus himself, risen from the dead, is hard to grasp. Yet here he is, crucified, dead, and buried, and alive again. “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’” (Jo. 20:18). Along with the disciples, we are recipients of the message.
Now we can make out the landmarks of the new reality. Now we can see with greater clarity what God is up to. In short, death is not the end. There’s new life on offer, and hope beyond the grave. Love is stronger than death (Song of Songs 8:6), as the scriptures say, and certainly stronger than any power this world can muster. Truth is not what we make it out to be, but has its origin and home in God.
If there is an air of mystery on Easter Day, it’s not the glow of fantasy, but the clear presence of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. He’s entered history from sideways and rewritten the source code of human reality. We have a hard time taking it in, but that doesn’t mean it’s a myth.
If Jesus is elusive, and not yet graspable, it’s because the upside down reality of life out of death is outside of our experience. If the truth is strange and unfamiliar, that’s because it’s a truth we are not free to make up for ourselves. If we are still wedded to the iron laws of power that rule this world, we need to come to terms with the power of the cross. These are the landmarks that we can now make out in the light of that Easter Day. This is the reality that has arrived with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That’s the message of this Easter Day, the message we’ve received. God bless you in this holy season of Easter, and grant that we may see with clear eyes the one who is risen from the dead. May God blow your heart open with this good news. It’s ours to pass on.