The Empty Tomb
Easter Vigil Scripture Readings
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away…. Behold, I make all things new.” [Revelations 21:4-5]
Tonight is a night of contrasts, where opposites conjoin: decay and renewal, sadness and joy, resentment and forgiveness, hatred and love, darkness and light, death and life. The celebration of Jesus’s resurrection isn’t for Jesus. He has been raised up. It’s for us. In the light of the resurrection, as the solemn Easter Proclamation announced, “Darkness vanishes forever.” It’s the darkness of anxiety and fear, the darkness of inadequacy and low self-esteem, the darkness of anger and resentment, the darkness of selfishness and self-centeredness, the darkness of contempt and exclusion, the darkness of uncaring and neglect, the darkness of servitude and slavery, the darkness of stubbornness and hardness of heart, the darkness of disease and death.
The tomb was empty, but the resurrection was there. What no one saw before that moment was that the resurrection was always there. It was the hope inside the fear, the courage inside the uncertainty, the forgiveness inside the anger, the empathy inside the selfishness, the embrace inside the rejection, the nurturing inside the neglect, the compassion inside the meanness, the freedom inside the slavery, the life inside the suffering and death.
We shake our heads. “It was never there,” we say. “We never saw it,” we say.
“But I promise you,” says your God, “it was always there. It was there from the very beginning. You just needed someone to show you where to look.”
Христос Воскрес! Воїстено Воскрес!
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