Mark 16:1-7

Lectio (Reading)

When the sabbath was over,
Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome
bought spices so that they might go and anoint him.
Very early when the sun had risen,
on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb.
They were saying to one another,
“Who will roll back the stone for us
from the entrance to the tomb?”
When they looked up,
they saw that the stone had been rolled back;
it was very large.
On entering the tomb they saw a young man
sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe,
and they were utterly amazed.
He said to them, “Do not be amazed!
You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here.
Behold the place where they laid him.
But go and tell his disciples and Peter,
‘He is going before you to Galilee;
there you will see him, as he told you.’”

Meditatio (Reflecting)

On entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were utterly amazed. He said to them, “Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold the place where they laid him.

Oratio (Responding)

On this night of the easter vigil we celebrate the ressurection of Jesus. Why does the ressurection matter? Well the entire christian faith hangs on this moment. You see, if Jesus did not raise Himself from the dead, then that means that He is not the son of God. If He is not the son of God, then He is just another man, and His death is un remarkable. If His death was meaningless, then we are still abandoned to sin and the gates of Heaven are still closed. If Heaven is still closed, then we have no hope of salvation, and we will never be able to reconcile our sin with the Lord, and will be eternally cast out of Heaven forever. Everything depends on this act.

The life death and ressurection of Jesus is one of the most well documented facts in the history of this world. We have the 4 gospels that tell the story, and they coherently is consistently tell the same facts of Jesus’ life. Many critics would falsely, claim that these men were disciples and that they had something to gain by affiriming the story of Jesus. But I will contend that all of these disciples of Jesus were tortured mercilessly for their faith, and all but John actually died as martyrs of the Faith. They tried many times to kill John but the Lord protected him from death, some think as a reward for his fidelity to Jesus and Mary at the cross. But why do I mention their martydom? because people dont die for a lie. Many will die for a lie that they think to be true, but no one dies for a lie that they know to be a lie. That would be insane. So they either gave an accounting of the true facts of Jesus’ life or they were liars that died for their lie.

But even if you do not accept the account of the apostles, there are Roman scholars, like Tacitus, and Jewish scholars like Josephus, that wrote about the times in Isreal at the time of Jesus’ death, and they confirm the true facts, that Jesus lived, He taught, and that He died at the hands of the Romans because of the insistence of the jewish temple leaders. And these men and many others also confirm the fact that Jesus was resurrected days later. These men had NO investment in promoting a lie about Jesus, on the contrary, the jews and the romans hated, Jesus, and had nothing to gain by lying about this moment in time. Thus we can conclude that they were recounting true facts about Jesus.

Next, I want to address the facts about his death. The romans were extremely good at killing people, and they knew how to torture people. The word excruciating comes from the process of Killing people by crucifix. This was an extremely painful way to die, and no one ever survived being crucified, ever! But to belabor the point, they made sure that he was dead by peircing Him with a lance. The fact that water came out means that both his heart, and his lungs (that were now filled with water) were peirced. No one survives a wound like that. Finally, Jesus was dead for three days, Friday at 3:00, to sometime sunday morning (the third day). It was not a full 72 hours, but clearly long enought be convincingly dead. And according to Jewish law you were not officially dead until the 3rd day, so in all ways of calculating death, Jesus was dead, He was not sleeping and would wake up later.

But then he wasnt. He was completely alive again, and when He appeared to his disciples, he retained the marks of His crucificixion, in His hands, feet, and side, but not the marks of the wips, and thorns. Father Ripperger says that this is because the marks of the crucifixion were what He was sent here to do to save us, the whips and the thorns are the result of our gratuitous infliction of more and more sin on Him after the fact. Jesus bears the marks of his crucifixion, in His glorified body, because they are the marks of his Victory over Sin, but the marks of the whips, and the thorns are our sins that have been forgiven, and they are gone, and forgotten.

Finally, St. Peter recounts a moment, in his Epistle, when the ressurected Jesus appeared to hundreds of people at the same time, and they were all converted and baptised. So between all this, I think we can safely Say that Jesus lived, died, and then lived again. It is beyond doubt, and it is beyond question. And so I assert that when one is confronted with the logical proofs that I have given herein, I believe that the conclusions derived, compell you to respond. You cannot confront the existence of Jesus and go on from that moment unchanged. This knowledge puts a claim on you and actually demands a response.

We must either accept these facts and orient ourselves to God in right worship by obediently ordering our lives according to His commands and His teachings…, or you must reject this truth and choose yourself to worship and obey instead. These two choices are completely logical, they come down to either humility and faith, or rejection and pride, anything else is completely irrational. Satan chose himself, and as a result he will spend eternity suffering in hell for that choice. The angels and saints chose God, and they have been rewarded with an eternity of joy and happiness in Heaven with the Lord.

But when you actually confront the truth of Jesus, it is then that the true work of the holy spirit begins in your life, and His will for your life will become clear. And when you identify all of the good works that He has done in your life, are you going to then love and worship Him, or are you going to pick up rocks to stone Him? That is what the ressurection is challenging you to choose today. What will you do?

Contemplatio (Contemplating)

Take time to simply remain in the presence of God.

Resolutio (Resolving)