Where is the Risen One?

The women who went to the tomb of Jesus were mindful of a dead body; yet something meaningful, because of their love. Spices and ointments were preparations for a dead body. Absence made them frightened, and fearfully they looked inside the tomb.

The words of the angels are very significant to us today: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!” The tomb is the place for the dead. People those are living come there only for burials. The living are there in their life questions, celebrations, sorrow, moaning, loving, and quarrelling. Seek the living one among the living in their ‘homes.’ Home means where they find at home and where they engage themselves. Jesus waits for us where and how we are living, and he wants to be part of it.

Jesus’ message to the women to be given to the disciples was, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Galilee is the homely place in contrast to Jerusalem which has religious intakes in the forms of actions, specific places, and persons. In Galilee we are humans, mere humans. Jesus says, “there they will see me.”

Once again going to the question, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” we might understand a deeper question, “Why are you afraid of absence, when what you long for is present, in you and among you? As he was dying “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.” As in his self-emptying, so also in his resurrection this loud cry is a thirst to be in us and among us. The Spirit that he breathed out is given to us as he rises up receives the new body of the ‘church.’ This realisation of the presence of Christ is the seeing of the Risen Christ.

Perhaps, in Jerusalem we might put on hypocritical holy figures because Jerusalem demands that. But Jesus makes haste to send us to Galilee, where we might recognize him in our daily lives and daily engagements. This presence is what we fail to recognize, and we are afraid because of this emptiness. We look for glorious presences, but Christ appears in ordinary moments. So within every instance there is a resurrection experience. We may be looking into the emptiness of our own tombs which, at times, are covered by stone. We must, then, listen to the voice, “He is not here, he is Risen, and he is present in you, and among you.” It is worthy of meditation that only those waited for him in love saw him. There is a deep emptiness and meaninglessness when he is not there, but they remembered what he said. In the hope they came to believe that he is risen if he is not there in the tomb. It is not a subjective imagination, but though unbelievable it is a realisation of a life-presenting presence, presence that presents life to all weaknesses and emptiness.

If we can see Christ as the design, plan and will of God, the resurrection embraces the whole nature. Limiting himself into one form of nature (being human and also like a servant) he emptied himself of the great design of the divine providence which is Christ himself. Now He is risen! At every bit of nature, can we experience the presence of Christ. Why are we afraid of an absence when he lives in us, within us and around us? Empty tomb is not the sign of resurrection, but his presence is. It is true that we cannot neglect our emptiness, but we should never discard the possibility of the presence of the risen one there.

In our approaches the attitudes of Christ, humility, surrender, faithfulness, love, mercy…, and in our actions the signs of his resurrection, joy, peace, friendship, and communion. Christ is risen! We too in union with him .. can we feel the joy of the Living?