Those women knew tombs. The most solemn of "woman's work" was the washing and anointing of the body of a deceased person in that place to which people would come for many years to pay their homage in minds and hearts, to remember.
The women who followed our Lord from the Galilee all the way to Jerusalem watched him die and be taken down from the cross. They would no doubt have seen Joseph of Aramathaea wrapping the body, placing it in a rock-hewn new tomb. Then they would have gone home for the sacred task of preparing spices to be applied to the corpse. It was always
wwa final act of love, and a notable exception to the legal proscription of work on the sabbath.
As they approach, the see that the stone cover has been rolled away and here, in the darkest and most fearful place -- the place of death, they find absolutely nothing. No corpse, no shroud, no wrappings. Absolutely nothing. They are perplexed: no doubt a combination of shock and confusion along with some sense of anger that someone has apparently stolen the body, an ultimate desecration of one who had already been through hell.
Then two spirit-beings remind them that Jesus predicted a comeback! Now they remember. This is world-shaking news, a complete reorientation of reality as commonly known. Now they don't have to live in the past, mourning loss of their Master; now they can see that resurrection life lies ahead. They are changed from people of fear and confusion to people of faith and confidence. They go forth to be sentinels of the word that love is stronger than hate, life stronger than death, peace stronger than all violence. They morph from tomb-crew to evangelists and when they approach the eleven disciples, these followers of Jesus don't get it. The women get it. Women always get it.
The greater good news is that the power of the resurrection can transform our lives here and now. We can stop "searching for the living among the dead." But it isn't easy, is it? We like living in the past. It is comfortable, predictable, what we are used to. It is easier for us to stay with the same life-denying relationships, those same self-defeating patterns of behaviour, the same compulsions, anger, anxieties, and fear. We want to stay in the tomb, but that is not God's plan!
We can have a new lease on life, a second chance at living abundantly. That new life begins at the baptismal font and leads to commissioning by apostolic hands in the sacrament of confirmation. And this all happens in a new kind of living, loving, supporting community -- a second family we call our church. So why are people searching for life in the realm of death? Christ is Risen. Alleluia!
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