An Easter meditation

The Jewish Sabbath is over and three women arrive to anoint Jesus on this first day of the week just as the sun is rising. As the women walk toward the tomb they are saying, “Who will roll away the stone?” (Mark 16:3). We still have the same human question: “Who will roll away the stone of our various blockages and our blindness?”

The Risen Jesus is the lasting image and eternal icon of what God is going to do everywhere for everybody in all of time. God’s exact job description is this, according to St. Paul: I am the God “who turns death into life and calls into being what does not yet exist” (Romans 4:17). Starting in Genesis, Yahweh is always creating something out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), which becomes the bedrock meaning of grace. Jesus stands forever as God’s promise, guarantee, and lifetime warranty of what God has always been about and will forever do: turn crucifixions into resurrections! What else would give us hope?

For me, that is what it means to “believe in Jesus” (see 1 Corinthians 15:20-23). We, like the women in the Gospel, are still asking, “Who will roll away the stone?” The first thing we need to recognize is that the stone is surely there, but notice also the moment of their arrival. They came “just as the sun was rising” (Mark 16:2). I think the text is telling us that it is divine light that allows us to both see—and then see beyond—the very same stone.

Taken from Father Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Easter.