Don’t you love coming to Church on Easter Sunday morning! The colorful flowers are scattered everywhere. The sweet smell of the lilies fills the air. The bright banners are displayed. The congregation is wearing its finest clothing – and how about those Easter bonnets! How great it is to burst out in song after being deprived of “alleluias” for the past forty days. The children are delighted by the Easter Egg hunt. And there is always the chocolate bunny. How sad that in this year of sheltering in place we are deprived of these things … well, maybe not the chocolate bunny. So we have to look more deeply at the Easter story since we have lost those normal supports to our celebration of the heart of the Christian year.
Each year on Easter Sunday we proclaim this gospel from St. John. It tells the story of Mary Madgalene finding the empty tomb and then Peter and the Beloved Disciple confirming her report. (The gospel does not say why the men did not trust the word of the woman but that’s another sermon.) So maybe that particular gospel story provides the clue about how to approach this celebration of Easter so different from what we are accustomed to – we are at the stage of encountering an empty tomb. Not for us yet the consolation of being able to experience the Risen Christ in our midst. Not for us yet the joy of being able to touch and feel and taste and smell that Jesus is truly with us. All we are left with is an empty tomb and some burial wrappings.
A story: it was Easter morning and the children had just searched all through the house and found their baskets filled with marshmallow peeps, Cadbury eggs, malt balls, Reese’s pieces, jelly beans, and, yes, chocolate bunnies. Mom had worked hard to help the Easter bunny fill the baskets with just the right stuff. She smiled contentedly seeing their happy faces. Soon though the children gathered around her. We have a basket for you, mommy, they said. Me, I don’t get a basket. This year you do, the children replied. So they handed her the beautifully decorated basket but when mother looked inside, her face became puzzled for the basket was completely empty! “I don’t understand,” said mother. “There’s nothing in here!” “Because we love you, momma, we’ve given you the one gift you truly need — nothing! It’s magic. Your basket is full of the precious gift of emptiness.” Mother wondered about emptiness as a gift, to be empty was to be needy. Who loves a needy person? People seem to love only those who do many things, The children saw her confusion. “The gift of emptiness is to be needy in a way that isn’t bad. Emptiness is an enchanted space that we all need in our hearts. Even you, mommy, the best mother in all the world, need to have an enchanted place in your heart that only your children can fill.” How can anyone celebrate Easter unless there is in her heart an emptiness, a hollow place that needs filling? Then she understood: to be empty isn’t a fault that one tries to hide for fear of looking weak. Emptiness is the one condition that is absolutely necessary to truly understand the meaning of Easter!
That is why the Easter story begins with an empty tomb. Mary Magdalene and Peter and the Beloved Disciple and all the rest had been filling themselves up with the words and actions of Jesus for three years. They thought if they filled themselves up they would truly be disciples. But it was not enough. Having all that information, all that knowledge did not keep them from betrayal, denial, abandonment. What they needed was emptiness – the emptiness that you can do nothing to fill by yourself, that only the love of another can fill. On the Easter morning when Peter entered the empty tomb he had to confront the emptiness. There was nothing he could do on his own that would make him understand. He had to empty himself of all that he thought he knew about life and death, about love and forgiveness, about God and, yes, himself. As St. Paul put it in another place, he had to clear out the old yeast so that something new could happen. The empty tomb showed him what he truly needed.
Which brings us to today. Being without the usual accompaniments of Easter has left us feeling empty. The church is empty on Easter Sunday, the one day of the year it should be filled. Our dinner table is empty of all those who would normally gather around to share the festive meal that celebrates the holiday. Our hearts are empty of the usual laughter and joy that happens when friends gather on a special occasion. But this emptiness provides us an opportunity to examine what is truly going on in our hearts. Like Peter we stand in the emptiness and are puzzled by this new thing that God is doing.
But did you notice how the passage ends? We’re told that the beloved disciple “saw and believed.” Now he did not understand anymore that Peter about why there was an empty tomb but he believed. He believed that the love he had experienced from Jesus was not a sometime thing or a temporary condition but something that lasted and perdured. He believed in emptying himself of himself so that he could be filled with love. He believed that love is stronger than death, stronger even than hell. Church, Jesus is truly risen but before we come to see him, before we can welcome him into our hearts, before we cling to his feet we must create that empty space which only love can fill. Happy Easter.
