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On behalf of the staff, the Pastoral Council, and heads of ministries at Holy Family I want to convey a welcome to visitors. I pray you may feel at home here. To my parishioners I want to convey my prayers of appreciation for you; your faith and your love have been a tremendous blessing to me, for which I am very grateful. I always tell my priest friends how spoiled I am here because of you. Happy Easter!
Remember when Mary first went to the garden, she could not find Jesus. Because she was looking for a dead man, she looked for Him in vain.
So it is with us. If we look for a dead Christ, the One who lived two thousand years ago in Israel, we might admire Him and learn something from Him. We might be intrigued and inspired by Him, but we will not experience the Risen Christ who lives with us today. This is the Jesus who saves and sustains. This is the Jesus who stands before us in the garden and calls our name!
Know today that Jesus lives. Know that the past is no longer a burden and the future is now a promise. The tyranny of sorrow is overthrown, replaced by the kingdom of joy. Because He lives, we can surely face tomorrow no matter what may come our way today. Like Mary so long ago, we discover on this Easter morning how inexpressible sorrow gives way to unutterable joy and suddenly, there is no need for weeping anymore.
All through John's Gospel, Peter (the leader of the disciples) and the beloved disciple (the one who seems to be closest to the heart of Jesus) are natural rivals for center stage. When they heard Mary's word and began running, no doubt all that mattered to them initially was the news that the tomb was empty; but as they ran, the old rivalry clicked into place, and, matching stride for stride, it began to count who got there first.
John sees something much more profound in their footrace. John believes that these two disciples are not merely racing toward a vacant grave; though they do not yet know it, they are running toward the future, toward the resurrection, toward a radical new way of life. When they started running, they were the disciples of a dead teacher; by the time their running is done, they will be the apostles of a risen and living Christ.
So, when John reports that the beloved disciple "outran Peter and reached the tomb first" (John 20:4), he is not simply reporting the results of a heated race, he is making a theological statement. Notice how the author of John’s Gospel never uses his own name: he always uses “the beloved disciple.” John wants you to identify with being that person. Like a superb writer he cleverly avoids his name in order to subconsciously insert yours. This race is his way of saying that the beloved disciple is the first person to arrive at Easter, the first person to believe in the good news of the resurrection, the first child of the kingdom to wake up and see the dawn of the new creation.
Why is it important to know that the beloved disciple won the race? Why is John concerned to report that this disciple took a running jump and became the first human being to leap across the chasm between the old and dying age and the season of God's triumph? The reason is that the beloved disciple is first not only in foot speed, but first also in the way he came to believe. His way of believing in the resurrection is, in John's view, the primary and essential way of believing.
Others will come to believe, but not like the beloved disciple. Mary will believe when she actually sees the risen Christ and hears him call her name. The other disciples, except Thomas, will believe when Jesus appears to them saying, "Peace be with you." Thomas will believe when the risen Jesus comes to him and offers to let him touch his hands and side.
But the beloved disciple is different. He believes when he sees ... nothing. He does not see Jesus; he does not touch Jesus; he does not hear Jesus call his name. He just peers into the empty tomb and believes. In other words, the beloved disciple, unlike the others, believes in the resurrection in the light of Jesus' absence. He has no evidence, except the emptiness. He has no proofs, no photographs, no scorched places on the earth caused by a burst of resurrection energy. He doesn't even have yet all the biblical background on this. All he has is an empty place where the body of the one who loved him used to be. But it is enough: "He saw and believed" (John 20:8).
Now we can understand why, from John's point of view, it was so important to record the one who won that footrace to the tomb. John wants
us to know that the very first believer in the resurrection, the forerunner of all Easter faith, came to believe in precisely the same way that you and I do -- not seeing the risen Jesus. The risen Jesus has not appeared to us in a garden and called our name. The risen Jesus has not found us and stretched out his wounded hands for us to touch.
"Blessed are those who have not seen," Jesus said, "and yet have come to believe." By this, he means us, of course, and the beloved disciple, who believed though he did not see, is our forerunner