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| Duccio di Buoninsegna [1260-1318] The Three Marys at the Tomb, c. 1308-1311 |
As I did last night at the Great Vigil of Easter, I want to begin my remarks this morning by reflecting on a depiction of Christ’s Resurrection in Christian art. If you would look at the illustration on the cover of our program, it shows an Italo-Byzantine painting of three women encountering an angel at the tomb on the first Easter Sunday morning. In the Western tradition they’re sometimes known as the three Marys; in the Eastern tradition they’re known as the holy myrrh-bearing women.
The resurrection narrative in Saint Luke’s Gospel, which we’ve just heard, names them as Mary Magdalene, Joana, and Mary the mother of James. The other Gospels feature slight variations on their names and number. All four Gospels are clear, however, that before dawn on the first Easter Sunday a small group of women go to the tomb, but find it empty, and encounter heavenly messengers telling them that he is not there, for he is risen from the dead.
The women are then instructed to go and tell the disciples what they’ve heard and seen. For this reason, they are sometimes known as “apostles to the apostles”; and in the Eastern Orthodox tradition they have the title “equal to the apostles.” They’re witnesses to the events of both Good Friday and Easter Sunday. They’d followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. They were present when Jesus was taken down dead from the cross, wrapped in a linen shroud, and laid to rest in the tomb. Then it seemed that their whole world had fallen apart, their hopes dashed. But when they return after the Sabbath to anoint the body, they’re first to find the tomb empty.
Beyond the joy of realizing that something unimaginably wonderful has happened, they receive the crucial assignment of bearing witness to what they’ve seen and heard. In Jewish law, a fact can be established by the unanimous testimony of three witnesses, men or women – hence the importance of there having been at least three women at the tomb.
The Church’s faith in the resurrection of Christ rests in large part on their testimony. In recent years, some New Testament scholars have pointed out that belief in Christ’s resurrection from the dead depends on two pieces of evidence taken together: the empty tomb, and the subsequent appearances of the risen Christ to his disciples.
By itself, the empty tomb proves nothing. The body could have been stolen by his enemies, or surreptitiously removed by his followers. And by themselves, the appearances of the risen Christ can be explained away either as a delusion, or as the apparitions of a ghost. In the ancient world, as in many times and places since, it was not uncommon for grieving relatives and friends to encounter spirits of the departed.
But combine these two pieces of evidence – the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances – and it becomes clear that we’re dealing with an event that’s unique, unprecedented, and mysterious. One who was really and truly dead has now been raised to not just new life but a whole new state of existence. This is not merely the resuscitation of a corpse, but a passage from earthly life through death to eternal life. In the risen Christ, death itself has been defeated, and life has gained the victory.
Of this victory, both the women at the tomb and the disciples are made witnesses. The women are sent to bear witness to the disciples; and the disciples are in turn sent to bear witness to all nations and peoples of the earth. And from then until now, the Church has not ceased to continue this mission of bearing witness to the Lord’s Resurrection.
Years ago, when I was in the process of discerning my vocation to the priesthood, and going through all the steps necessary to secure approval to go to seminary, a friend of mine focused this point for me in a way that I’ve never forgotten. He went to the same seminary I did, in Virginia, three years ahead of me. In the middle of his second year, I went to visit him there, both to catch up with how he was doing, and to see the seminary for myself, since I was already thinking of going there.
In the course of our conversations, he remarked: “I’m a cradle Episcopalian. I grew up attending Sunday School, participating in the Youth Group, and serving as an acolyte. But in my first year of seminary I began to realize that I’d been wrong about much of what I thought were the purposes of the Church’s existence, its reasons for being. Worship and prayer; preaching, study, and teaching; mission, evangelism, and good works in the world – are all ordered towards serving the main purpose, the primary purpose, which is to bear witness to the Lord’s Resurrection. If we’re not doing that, then we’re not fulfilling our mission as the Church; we’re not being the Church.”
Those were challenging words; and I’ve often called them to mind when I’ve encountered people and groups in the Church who seem to think that the Resurrection is an optional extra that we don’t have to believe in if we don’t want to: or perhaps a metaphor for some sort of subjective experience of renewal on the part of the disciples and, by extension, on our part as well. No. Bearing witness to the Lord’s bodily Resurrection is the key activity that defines our identity and mission as the Church.
But can we believe in the Resurrection today and maintain our intellectual integrity? Yes we can. True, we live in a skeptical world which discourages belief in anything supernatural or miraculous. But where we end up so often depends on where we start. Some time ago, someone told me that she couldn’t accept Christianity because it was impossible to believe all its stories about miracles. For once, the right answer occurred to me on the spot, right there and then, rather than in the shower the next morning; and I replied: “No, you’ve got it exactly the wrong way round. It’s not that you can’t accept Christianity because you don’t believe in miracles; it’s that you can’t believe in miracles because you don’t accept Christianity.” In other words, if the Christian God is the sort of God that the Scriptures claim him to be, then miracles are no problem. If God created the universe and everything in it out of nothing, then he’s certainly capable of creative actions in the world that surpass human understanding, including raising the dead.
Here, then, is the reason for our joyful gathering this morning and, indeed, every Sunday morning. We gather as the Church to continue the witness begun by the women at the tomb. Christ is not dead but alive; and he makes himself available to us as a living presence in each of our lives if only we invite him in. Because he lives, we also have the promise of eternal life. And it’s our mission as the Church never to cease bearing witness to this good news.
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