Feeling the light
S.R.T.
Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
- Rabindranath Tagore
It was still dark when Mary Magdalen went to the tomb after the terrible days of the Lord's passion and crucifixion. This was more than the darkness of the early morning. She saw that the stone had been moved and straightaway ran back to Peter and the other disciples. "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb" she said, "and we do not know where they have laid him" (Jn 20:2).
Mary presumed that the body had been stolen. Not for a moment was there a suggestion that Jesus had risen from the dead. The Easter gospel of John begins with an unbelieving Mary; her mind and heart still dark in that early morning darkness.
Her shocking message galvanised Peter and ‘the other disciple whom Jesus loved' and sent them racing to the empty tomb. It was as Mary Magdalen had told them - empty. They went in and saw the burial clothes, just that. But, and here is the wonder, in that silent place, in that early morning darkness, that unnamed, beloved disciple ‘saw and believed.' Even though, as John goes on immediately to tell us, ‘They didn't yet understand the Scriptures that he had to rise from the dead,' he believed that Jesus, who had been tortured, died in anguish on the cross and been buried in the very tomb in which he was now standing with Peter, was alive. He did not need signs or wonders to convince him, he needed no evidence for his heart to say ‘Yes' to this greatest of all mysteries, to say ‘I believe the Lord is risen from the dead.'
That unnamed disciple is the first of a long line of followers who, down through the ages to the present day, without tangible evidence, believe that Jesus rose from the dead; that he is alive, that he is with us in the ins and outs of our days, in the glad times and the sad times, in times of war and in times of peace. Jesus said at the Last Supper ‘I will not leave you bereft; I am coming back to you' (Jn 14:18).
The beloved disciple's faith was born out of the love he had for the Master, whose life he had shared intimately for three years. In the silence of his heart, in the darkness, he believed. It was enough.
We meet such followers today, men and women, children, who, though they have never seen the Lord, never walked the road with him or seen him smile at them, yet believe in him; believe even when everything seems to point to the foolishness of their faith. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is central to our life - "... if Christ was not raised, your faith has nothing to it and you are still in your old state of sin" (1 Cor 15:17). It is this radical belief that enables people to live with hope and radiate something of that Light that overcomes darkness.
Maybe your heart feels empty, like that tomb. Maybe you see nothing, hear nothing and scarcely believe in the story that even the disciples considered ‘nonsense' (Lk 24:11).
No matter. Instead of berating yourself on your lack of faith, or turning away from Jesus, stand in silence with that beloved disciple and draw on his faith and on the faith of those unnamed multitudes down the centuries who, from the depths of their heart sang out the great song of Easter - ‘The Lord is risen!' And, in time, you too, like the unbelieving Magdalen, will hear your name being called (Jn 20:16).
