Vigil of Easter Homily 2006
Who will roll back the stone for us?
This is the question of the moment.
It is the early morning light
and Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome,
are coming to the tomb.
They want to anoint the body of Jesus.
Unlike most of those who were crucified who
were left as carrion for the birds, other animals, or buried in shallow graves
Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus.
He takes the body to a tomb carved out of the rock
and puts a big stone at the entrance.
Mary Magdalene and the other women see the stone put in place.
They know where the tomb is.
Who will roll back the stone for us?
Does the stone matter at all to Jesus, to his resurrection?
Not at all.
Jesus can rise from the dead
without the stone being moved.
After all, the Risen Lord comes into the room with his disciples
where all the doors have been locked.
The Risen Lord appears to and then disappears from
the two disciples on the road to Emmaus
He is no longer bound by the conventions of matter, time, and space.
This is one of the reasons that the resurrection accounts are so complicated;
The resurrection cracks, fractures language.
It explodes our normal categories of experience.
Who will move the stone for us?
If the stone doesn’t matter to Jesus,
to whom does it matter?
It matters to the women,
it matters to the believing community
It matters to us.
The believing community needs to get into the tomb
not because we need to anoint Jesus,
but because we need to be buried with Christ,
so that we may rise with him.
The symbol of the tomb provides the basis for later baptismal language.
As Paul says so eloquently,
"Are you not aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?" (Romans 6.3).
Mary Magdalene and the other disciples need to bury
the physical immediacy of the Jesus who was with them in Galilee.
Peter needs to bury fear, confusion, and shame
so that his love for Jesus will be strong and confident.
Some of us may need to bury ambivalence about our vocation:
a spouse may need to give themselves completely to the marriage and family you are in.
Or we may have expected something completely different
in our marriage or monastic life — we are filled with disappointment, frustration.
The resurrection is the feast of feasts for the unexpected.
What about us as a monastic community?
What part of our identity as a monastic community
do we need to bury at this 150 year mark,
so the Spirit in us can invent a new way of being monastic,
a new way of being church in this place?
Who will move the stone for us?
The miracle is that the stone is no longer in the way.
God has removed this barrier to our new life.
How often we imagine barriers where there are none,
but our fear of change can create rocks as big as the bell banner.
Or we unwittingly imagine that we have to roll back the stone ourselves.
If we had to, we couldn’t.
It is all grace -- because of baptism we are Christians
and the Holy Spirit inspires, encourages and consoles us.
"Our status as sons and daughters before God never depends
on how we feel,
on having the right experience,
on being free of doubts, on what we accomplish,
on our success or our position.
Coming in water, God washed us and grafted us into Christ.
Baptized into his death,
we are raised to live as the Body of Christ in the world today."1
Go and tell the disciples and Peter — Go and tell!
We can get into a rhythm where the resurrection of Jesus
is ordinary and routine.
Spring has come — yes, tomorrow is Easter —
O yes, and the Sagatagan is open.
To live a resurrected life now means to be on fire with new life.
When was the last time you or I told someone lives?
What would happen if each one of us would speak
with one other person in the next week about our resurrection faith?
Our world and its people need the resurrection of Jesus
and the only way they are going to hear about it is through us.
Rejoice and then go and tell!!
Abbot John Klassen, OSB
April 15, 2006
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