Gospel of Sunday, April 20 Easter Resurrection- John 20:1-9
1 On the first day of the week, early in the morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw the stone removed from the tomb. 2 Then she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have put him.”
3 Peter and the other disciple therefore went out and went to the tomb. 4 The two of them ran together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first; 5 and bending down, he saw the bands on the ground, but he did not go in. 6 Meanwhile Simon Peter, who was following him, also arrived and entered the tomb, and he saw the bands on the ground, 7 and the shroud, which had been on Jesus’ head, not on the ground with the bands, but folded in a separate place. 8 Then the other disciple who had come to the tomb first also entered, and he saw, and believed. 9 For they had not yet understood the Scripture, according to which he was to rise from the dead.Jh 20:1-9
Dear sisters and brothers of Misericordia, I am Carlo Miglietta, a doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it). Also today I share with you a short thought meditation on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
EASTER SUNDAY
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS, THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY
The resurrection is the central event of our faith, the fulcrum of history. Furthermore, it is the unique “sign” given by Jesus (Mt 16:4) that the man who died, murdered on a cross, was not one of the many derelicts of human history, but God himself who took on the limitations of the world to annihilate it and give us his own divine life.
This is why the core of the Christian faith, the kerygma, is that Christ is risen. This is why Easter is the fundamental Christian holiday! Paul emphasizes this with extreme force: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all he appeared to me also… If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain… If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:3-22).
The testimony of the Risen Jesus is the purpose of the preaching of the entire early Church: the apostle must be the “witness of his resurrection” (Acts 1:22). Paul “announced Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18), calling it the “sure proof” (Acts 17:31) of the Lordship of Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of faith. For those who already believe in God through philosophical speculation, it will represent the confirmation that Jesus is truly the Son of God (and this will be the procedure of the school of Alexandria in Egypt, from the end of the 2nd century); for others, the experience of a man who, by resurrecting, conquers death, and therefore proves to be stronger than nature, and therefore supernatural, and therefore God, will be the way to come to believe in the existence of God, as well as in the divinity of Jesus Christ (as the “historical way” of the school of Antioch in Syria, from the 3rd century, will propose).
All people of all times will be called to confront the apostolic testimony: faith in Jesus will be based on the acceptance or not of the word of eyewitnesses. This should not disturb us, because of all the historical facts of which we have no personal experience we have only indirect testimonies: I believe that there were Roman wars against the Gauls because I trust what Caesar wrote in “De bello gallico”; or I believe that there was the French revolution because I trust what historians say; or that there was the war in Iraq or the fall of the Berlin Wall based on the accounts of journalists of the printing press or of radio and television. It is therefore a problem of credibility of the witnesses. And the Apostles and disciples who announce to me that Jesus is risen, are they credible?
1. They were simple and concrete men (fishermen, tax collectors, etc.), far from being able to invent speculations of this kind
2. They are not ashamed to say that they themselves were the first to doubt.
3. They were not liars: they gained nothing from their testimony.
4. They were not visionaries: they were serene and balanced people, who impressed the Roman executioners themselves with their balance, as can be seen from the literature that speaks of the trials of Christian martyrs.
5. Many had seen and in different circumstances.
6. Fearful and defeated after the death of Jesus (John 21:19), after the encounter with the Risen One they went out to announce their shocking experience to the world.
7. They paid for their affirmation with their lives, sealing their word in blood.
8. The tomb, according to their opponents themselves, was empty.
9. They did not worry about settling the numerous discrepancies that are found in the Gospels on secondary details of the Easter events (as would have been done by anyone who wanted to invent a similar story).
10. Wanting to describe the resurrection, they never tell how it happened.
The resurrection is therefore a historical fact, but one that transcends history and becomes meta-historical.
Obviously, admitting that the resurrection happened is not yet believing: I can say: “Jesus is risen, but I don’t care!”. James says: “Do you believe that there is one God? You do well; even the demons believe and tremble!” (James 2:19).
The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of faith. But, as Thomas Aquinas said, “fides rationabile obsequium”: believing is entrusting oneself, throwing oneself completely into the arms of God, accepting his message as true and as salvation for me. Christians are those who welcome the announcement of the Apostles, but above all who then change their life, inserting it into that of the Risen One.
True faith is love: the beloved disciple is the first to recognize the Lord (Jn 21:4-7); faith is “seeing + loving” (1 Jn 4:7-8): in Jn believing (pisteuein) is often followed by “in” (eis), with the idea of movement, momentum, abandonment (2:11; 12:44; 3:18).
THE FUNERAL CLOTHES
Proof of the resurrection?
Since the 5th century, Ammonius of Alexandria maintained that the resurrected body of Jesus would have emerged immaterially from the burial clothes. Various scholars (Balagué, Omer …) therefore think
that the beloved disciple believed because of the way he found the burial clothes, which would have remained, impregnated with aromatic oils, upright and rigid as if the corpse disappeared inside its mummy. Let us read with a literal translation the Gospel of John:
“And (John) stooping down, sees the linen cloths lying (collapsed?) but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter also came, following him, and went into the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying (collapsed?) and the shroud that was on his head, not lying (collapsed?) like the linen cloths, but differently, rolled up inside, in its place (= where they should have been)” (Jn 20,5-7).
– “The linens”: the translation “bandages” is untenable because in Greek “bandages” is “keirìai” (see John 11:44: the bandages of Lazarus’ corpse). Here instead there is “othónia” that is generic “linen fabrics”.
– The shroud”: handkerchief (to dry sweat). Here we would mean chin guard (cf. John 11:44: Lazarus has his face tied around with a shroud).
– The participle “in-rolled up” (“entetyligménon”) in Greek is a perfect, which therefore indicates an action of the past whose effects persist in the present and which therefore must be understood as “continued to be rolled up as it had been placed”.
– “Lying”: this is the literal translation of the term “kéimena”: it is not correct to translate “on the ground”. The word “collapsed” placed in brackets is not the translation, but an interpretation. Then it would have happened that the burial linens, no longer containing the corpse, would have “collapsed”; the shroud instead, which was more rigid, would not have collapsed like the linens, but would have remained rolled up inside the sheet in its place, that is, in the place where logically it should have been found and therefore its presence would have remained visible on the outside.
– “eis èva tòpon”: ; lit.: in one place only; that is: in the same place
“Then the other disciple who reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).
– First of all, note the presence of the double “and” that connects seeing and believing: the coordination introduced by “and he saw and believed” is much closer in Greek than in Italian. It expresses a cause and effect link: the disciple believed because of what he saw. That sight led him to believe in the resurrection: in fact, if someone had wanted to take away the body, he could not have left the linens in that way. The disciple therefore derives from the arrangement of the linens the “proof” of Jesus’ resurrection and thus believes the Scriptures (cf. Jn 2:22: “When he was raised from the dead, the disciples remembered… and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had said”).
Proof that there had been no theft of the body?
But it is not clear why this miraculous arrangement did not convince Peter. It is perhaps more likely that the beloved disciple, seeing the carefully arranged linens, thought the theft of the corpse unlikely. Chrysostom already said: “Whoever had removed the body, would not have first stripped it, nor would he have taken the trouble to remove and roll up the shroud and leave it in a separate place” (Homilies on John, 85,4).
The “theology of clothing”
Let us not forget that throughout the Bible there is a “theology of clothing”: not only does clothing have important symbolic meanings (think of the white garments typical of the divine sphere or of Jesus’ stripping of his tunic before crucifying him), but also nudity can recall the primitive paradisiacal situation of Adam, friend of God.
Here Jesus no longer needs human clothing, because “Christ, having been raised from the dead, will die no more” (Rom 6:9), unlike Lazarus who emerges from the tomb wrapped in burial cloths (Jn 11:14), because he had to die again.
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS, THE SOURCE OF OUR JOY
In the triumph of the Lord’s resurrection, evil, pain, and death have been annihilated forever: through his resurrection we are introduced into a “new heaven and a new earth,” in which “(God) will dwell among them, and they will be his people, and he will be “God-with-them.” And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there will be no more death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away… Behold, I make all things new… These words are faithful and true; behold, they are accomplished!” (Rev 21:1-6). Therefore the Apostle sings, quoting the prophets (Is 25:8; Hos 13:14): “Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:54-55).
But in the resurrection of Christ an even greater event has taken place for us: not only have pain and death been annihilated, but we have even received “adoption as sons” (Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5), and we have become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4)!
May the joy of the Risen One flood our lives!
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.