It's time to sing Alleluia!

Happy Easter to one and all! Let’s tell the world the good news. Jesus is risen alleluia, alleluia! The gospel reading for Easter Sunday is from St John and one of the images you take away from that reading is how everybody is running about. Mary Magdalene comes running to Simon and the other disciple. Having listened to what she has to tell them, they go galloping off to see for themselves what has happened. They go at full speed to get to the tomb as fast as they can. Their hearts must have been thumping in their chests. What on earth was Mary on about: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him”. It’s all very frenetic and confusing. They want to get there as fast as they can to figure out what has happened. I’m sure they arrive puffing and panting. The other disciple arrives first and stops, what does he see? Linen cloths lying on the ground. What can it mean? Then Peter arrives and without stopping goes right in to the tomb. He too sees the cloths lying on the ground, but also the face cloth, neatly rolled up in a place by itself. But what has happened and where is the body of Jesus? What is going on?

Remember how two weeks ago we read the story of Lazarus, and how he emerged from the tomb? The gospel tells us: the dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with bands of stuff and a cloth round his face. The comparison is clear. For Lazarus, the burial cloths will be needed again, whereas for Jesus, they have been left behind, no longer needed, no longer necessary, they have been discarded and left in the tomb. Death is no longer a consequence for Jesus. He has abandoned the tomb, it no longer contains him. He is risen.

We are told that seeing the cloths, the other disciple believed, but no mention is made of what Peter thought, but notice what happens next. The lectionary doesn’t continue with the narrative but the gospel itself states that the disciples then went home again. It’s a strange way to finish the story. It is a difficult phrase to translate, but it isn’t meant to convey that they simply went back to their house for breakfast. Rather it is the same phrase that the evangelist uses when, from the cross, Jesus tells the beloved disciple “This is your mother” and from that moment the disciple then took her into his home. It is in essence a building up of the nascent community of believers that has now been formed from the moment of deep sorrow of the cross, to the moment of joyful exultation at the glory of the resurrection. It is why we, as part of this community two thousand years later, can sing at the top of our voices: “Alleluia” and why we should be running to tell the world the good news!