Over the last five days, we’ve stopped at the key events of our salvation. We have witnessed events that, we can say, have changed the course of history. We saw Christ’s redemptive work. Likewise, we spent the Last Supper with him, accompanied him on the Way of the Cross, laid his body in the grave, and then witnessed his glorious resurrection. Shouldn’t the Messiah have suffered all this? (Lk 24, 26) – asked the resurrected Jesus as the disciples walked to Emmaus. He revived their memory and reminded them that all the suffering had to come. This is how Jesus personally shaped the spreaders of his glad tidings. Even when the religious women went to anoint Jesus’ dead body in the grave, God won them for his Son through a powerful experience. The angels addressed them and asked them: Why do you seek the living among the dead? There is no one here. He rose from the dead.
This is the testimony of those who met the Risen One in person. We also believed their testimony. This truth about Christ’s resurrection is the foundation of our faith. We cannot stop and end at the Good Friday events. We, as religious people, can no longer stand at the sight of death; we are already thinking about what to do next! Christ, when he rose from the dead, showed us what to do next! People who have believed in Christ already know that death does not have the last word in their lives. It’s worth living! Those beautiful feelings of fatherhood, motherhood, friendship, or love can’t end up just somewhere in a cemetery – in a grave. It must have its continuation, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. Therefore, people who believed in the risen Son of God tried to organize their whole lives around his challenges. Because they thought, because they had hope! If something then came, some ideology that wanted to take away this hope, they had trouble leaving their faith and were the first Christians to say, ‘Sine Christum, non possumus! ‘
Many religious people thought similarly: Not property, not glory! And when they reached for the only essential thing in their lives, why was it still worth living when they came for their faith, which gave their difficult life comfort – they could no longer imagine it without Christ! We also experience something similar in our life stories. Therefore, it does not matter at all how long we live, but how we fulfill our lives. It doesn’t matter whether we avoid suffering, but whether we can accept it when it comes. It doesn’t matter when we die, but whether we are ready to meet God at any time. This awareness frees us from anxiety and fear. The words of today’s liturgy speak to us in strong and clear language! Jesus lives, was resurrected, and is present among us! Just as the disciples did, we experience a unique atmosphere of joy and perceive a special light from Christ’s resurrection.
Today, there is no way to prove to ourselves that Jesus rose from the dead and that the tomb is empty. We – here – experience in faith, the fact that God exists, is the God of life and the living, stands by his promises, is more potent than suffering, injustice, violence, and death! He has the last word, he is the Lord of life and death! Even as an objective fact, that empty grave does not mean anything in itself! This needs to be emphasized because we Christians sometimes desire to prove the resurrection of Jesus with some irrefutable evidence. Well, we have to remind you that even Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb, and that hasn’t moved her to faith yet! Objective evidence does not induce faith! If it were possible to take photos of the empty tomb of Jesus, then it would certainly cause a sensation! But maybe they wouldn’t become the basis of faith for anyone!
To give birth to faith, a personal address is necessary! Based on the individual address of Jesus Christ, you also came today, driven by the firm belief that he is God and that he lives! And that is the way for us – believers! Let’s not look for evidence; let’s not want to see an empty grave. But let’s look for the living Lord who is here among us. His love fills us with joy and happiness right now. Therefore, the message of Easter is: I am the first and the last, alive! I was dead, but now I live forever! Every person will one day recognize that all the brilliant discoveries of humanity, everything that people have created, the extraordinary events of history, cannot be given to a person who stands at the gate of death. Here, only the death and resurrection of Christ decide the eternal destiny of man.
Austrian theologian and bishop emeritus of Innsbruck Reinhold Stecher wrote in one of his meditations: „ When I am at Christ’s tomb, I feel as if I am sitting at a large terminus. As if the tracks and paths along which human suffering, human misery, human guilt travel converge here from all corners of the world and times, from all epochs and nations, on which death and blood walk … in endless gray crowds. Everything stands in front of this grave. All sighs stop before this stone, it’s the end of everything. Behind this stone, to which everyone eventually travels, there is a different world.“
The tomb of Christ is truly the final station where everything must come to rest. And it’s empty. Because no one stops here, they transfer to a new world. That is why we Christians, when we celebrate holidays, rejoice in the glorious resurrection of Christ, and also celebrate our own new life. It is something to which we have been invited by God that has become our best legacy. Praise, honor, and thanks to God for that. May our hearts never cease to sound a celebration of the Risen One, who gives our lives meaning and purpose!
