Friends, our Easter Gospel contains St. John’s magnificent account
of the resurrection. It was, says John, early in the morning on the first
day of the week. It was still dark—just the way it was at the beginning
of time before God said, “Let there be light.” But a light was about to
shine, and a new creation was about to appear.
The stone had been rolled away. That stone, blocking entrance to the
tomb of Jesus, stands for the finality of death. When someone that we
love dies, it is as though a great stone is rolled across them, permanently
blocking our access to them. And this is why we weep at death—not
just in grief but in a kind of existential frustration.
But for Jesus, the stone had been rolled away. Undoubtedly, the first
disciples must have thought a grave robber had been at work. But the
wonderful Johannine irony is that the greatest of grave robbers had
indeed been at work. The prophet Ezekiel says this, “I will open your
graves and have you rise from them.”
What was dreamed about, what endured as a hope against hope, has
become a reality. God has opened the grave of his Son, and the bonds
of death have been shattered forever.
Bishop Robert Barron
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