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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Let us begin by entering into a scene of profound sorrow and confusion. The Gospel of John tells us that on "the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen came early, when it was still dark, to the sepulchre; and she saw the stone had been taken away" (John 20:1). She runs to Peter and the Beloved Disciple, and her words are not a proclamation of victory, but a cry of despair: "They have taken the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we do not know where they have laid him" (John 20:2).
It is the first day of a new week, a day that should be full of light and beginning, yet the evangelist tells us it was still dark. The great commentators of our tradition, like St. Thomas Aquinas, see in this detail more than a simple description of the time of day. He writes that this physical darkness "indicated the condition of their minds, in which there was the darkness of doubt." St. John Chrysostom agrees, noting how Mary "knew not as yet anything clearly concerning the Resurrection, but thought there had been a removal of the body." These were souls of immense love, ardent and devoted, yet they were walking in darkness, unable to comprehend the victory that had just been won.
Their experience poses a question that echoes through the centuries and into our own hearts today: How do we, like Mary and the first disciples, move from a place of confusion and darkness to the light of faith and the fullness of joy? How do we find the Risen Lord when our world seems only to offer an empty tomb? The answer, as the Gospel shows us, begins with a race born of love—a race to that very place of emptiness.
The journey of Peter and John to the tomb represents two valid and complementary ways that we, as believers, approach the mystery of Christ. But even more profoundly, the Church Fathers saw in this race a microcosm of salvation history itself.
Upon hearing Mary's frantic report, the scripture tells us, "Peter therefore went out, and that other disciple, and they came to the sepulchre. And they both ran together" (John 20:3-4). What follows is a beautiful and symbolic interaction. John, being younger and perhaps quicker, "outran Peter, and came first to the sepulchre." Yet, upon arriving, he stoops down, looks in, but does not enter. He waits. It is only when Peter arrives—fervent, impetuous Peter—that the threshold is crossed. Peter "went into the sepulchre" first.
In this simple narrative, St. Gregory the Great unfolds a magnificent allegory. By John, the younger of the two, he sees a representation of the Synagogue, which came first in time to the worship of God. By Peter, the elder, he sees the Gentile Church. The Synagogue, represented by John, "came first to the sepulcher, but entered not." It had the prophecies and knew the commandments, it arrived at the mystery of Christ's death, but it hesitated at the threshold, unwilling to believe in the One who died. Then comes Peter, representing the Gentile Church, which in time was later. But with fervent faith, it "entered into the sepulcher," believing in Christ as living God and becoming the primary witness to His Resurrection.
Layered upon this profound truth, other Fathers see models for our own spiritual lives. In John, the Beloved Disciple, they see the path of contemplative love. As Theophylact explains, love is swift; "the contemplative man is generally beforehand in knowledge," arriving first at the mystery with the intuition of the heart. In Peter, with his "fervid temper," as St. Chrysostom calls it, they see the path of action and authority. He may be more "tardy in his belief," but his search is methodical and his entry is decisive, for he is the rock who must confirm the faith of the brethren.
Do you not see these two paths in our own parish? The tireless organizers of our ministries, and the quiet souls who spend hours before the Blessed Sacrament? The Church needs both her Peters and her Johns. Both paths are fueled by a deep love for Christ, and both lead to the same tomb. And what these two different disciples found inside were not immediate answers, but quiet, orderly signs pointing to a new and unbelievable reality.
The evidence of the Resurrection was not a grand, earth-shaking spectacle for the disciples, but a collection of quiet, orderly signs. These signs, however, spoke volumes to the eyes of faith, marking the dawn of what St. Thomas Aquinas calls a "new creation."
When Peter entered the tomb, he saw "the linen cloths lying there, and the napkin that had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up in one place" (John 20:6-7). This detail is of immense significance. As St. John Chrysostom powerfully argues, this orderliness is a potent argument against the theory that the body was stolen. A hurried grave robber would have taken the body as it was. A panicked disciple would not have stopped to neatly fold the head-covering. This was the work of someone acting with calm purpose, a victor conquering death, not a fugitive fleeing from it.
This was not the chaos of a robbery, but the calm order of a re-creation. As St. John Chrysostom shows us the what—the evidence against theft—St. Thomas Aquinas reveals the why: this orderliness is the very signature of the Creator bringing forth a new world from the tomb. St. Thomas points out that the evangelist says this happened on "the first day of the week," using the same phrasing as Moses in Genesis: one day. Why? Because "this day of the resurrection was the beginning of a new creation." Just as God brought order out of chaos in the beginning, Christ brought order out of the chaos of death. The tidy, empty tomb was the first sign of this new, victorious, and eternal order.
It is in the face of these signs that the pivotal moment of faith occurs. "Then the other disciple also went in... and he saw, and believed" (John 20:8). What did he believe? The great St. Augustine, in his scrupulous analysis, initially suggested that John simply believed what Mary had reported: "that He had been taken away from the tomb." But the wider consensus of commentators like Chrysostom and MacEvilly is clear: in that moment, his love illumined the signs, and John "believed in the Resurrection of our Lord." He saw the orderly cloths and the neatly folded napkin, and in that quiet evidence, he grasped the truth, even before he fully understood the scriptures. This personal, eyewitness experience of these signs would become the very foundation of the message the Apostles were commissioned to share with the entire world.
The Christian faith, my dear friends, is not built on abstract ideas, myths, or secret knowledge. It is built on the concrete, historical testimony of those who directly encountered the risen Christ—a testimony intended not for private consumption, but to create a vibrant community of believers.
St. John powerfully articulates this in the opening of his first letter, a text filled with an accumulation of sensory verbs to emphasize the undeniable reality of the Incarnation:
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life..." (1 John 1:1)
As St. Augustine explains, who can handle the eternal Word with their hands, "except because ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us’?" The eternal became tangible. The divine life, as the insightful commentator Fr. Noel Alexandre writes, "exposed himself to our senses—to be seen, to be heard, to be touched—so that he might make us spiritual."
And what is the ultimate purpose of this apostolic proclamation? John tells us plainly: "That which we have seen and heard, we announce to you, so that you also may have fellowship with us" (1 John 1:3). The Greek word here is koinonia—communion, participation, fellowship. But this is not merely a human club or social gathering. John immediately clarifies the sublime nature of this fellowship: "and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."
This is precisely why we gather here, as a Church. We come together to enter into that same apostolic fellowship, to hear the same witness that was "from the beginning." Through the Church and her sacraments, we are brought into that same communion, that same intimate participation in the very life of God Himself. And this divine fellowship, born from the reality of the Resurrection, is the source of a profound and unshakable joy.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not simply a personal victory for Him; it is a cosmic event that establishes His reign as King over all creation. It is the event that fulfills the cry of the psalmist, ushering in an age of light and joy for all who believe. When the disciples ran from the empty tomb, they were unknowingly the first heralds of the good news proclaimed in Psalm 97: "The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice!"
Cardinal Bellarmine explains that this psalm finds its ultimate meaning in the Risen Christ, to whom "all power on earth and in heaven hath been given." St. Augustine goes even further, stating that "The earth restored is the resurrection of the flesh; for after His resurrection, all those things which are sung of in the Psalm were done." The empty tomb is the inauguration of this kingdom.
This is the reign that brings light into the world's darkness. The psalmist declares, "Light is risen to the just, and joy to the right of heart" (Psalm 97:11). This is the very light of faith that dawned in the heart of St. John as he stood in the empty sepulchre—a light that dispels the darkness of doubt, fear, and death. It is the light that, as Pope St. John Paul II taught, marks "the rising of a dawn of joy, festivity and hope."
This brings us to the ultimate goal of our faith, the final purpose of the apostolic witness. St. John concludes his prologue by saying, "And these things we write to you... that your joy may be full" (1 John 1:4). What is this full joy? St. Augustine tells us that this "full joy... is found only in that fellowship, in that charity, in that unity" with God. It is a perfect, spiritual, and eternal joy that the world cannot give and cannot take away. This joy is the glorious inheritance of every Christian who lives in the reality of the Resurrection.
Today, we have journeyed together from the pre-dawn darkness of Mary Magdalene’s grief, a darkness that mirrored the doubt in her heart. We have run with Peter and John to the empty tomb, seeing in their race not only the twin paths of action and contemplation, but the grand story of the Synagogue and the Church arriving at the mystery of Christ. We have peered inside to behold the quiet, orderly signs of a new creation. And we have heard the apostolic witness, which is not a mere report, but an invitation into a joyful fellowship with the Risen King.
My friends, let us live as people of the Resurrection. In our own moments of darkness, confusion, or doubt, let us run to Christ, seeking the signs of His victory that are present even now in our midst. Let us deepen our fellowship with one another in the Church, for it is here that we find our communion with the Father and the Son. And above all, let us anchor our lives not in the fleeting pleasures of this world, but in that "full joy" that comes only from knowing, loving, and serving our Risen Lord.
May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has conquered death and reigned as King, be with you all.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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