Happy Easter, brothers and sisters.

The great human question, once people arrived at self-consciousness, has been: Why does our life end? Other living beings do not know that their life is over, and only man has this consciousness. He worries about the thought of death because he is afraid, and he struggles with what is peculiar to him… and he is called to be reconciled with this thought. If you are aware that your life has a beginning and an end, you will build it differently. This is part of his human condition. Even God cannot create a man who is not mortal. It would be another creature. 

Here, the question arises: If we are destined to die, why did God bring us into the world? If death is our final destiny and God exists, then he is playing with us. Since ancient times, people have tried to answer this disturbing question, and in the Ancient Middle East, they responded with myths, which served as their philosophy. What answers did they give to these questions? They said that when God created humanity, he gave them death. Life was in his hands. The answer Siduri gives to Gilgamesh (a legendary character from Sumerian mythology, 2750 BC), who is about to move from the world of the living to the world of the dead, is that he goes searching for his friend Enkidu, but he does not give him hope. The gods have monopolized immortality for themselves. 

It is a disconsolate reflection that Siduri communicates to Gilgamesh, one we also find in the Bible. Thus, David, in his prayer, says: “Our earthly life is but a shadow without hope” (1 Chr 29:15). Qohelet is even more direct: “In reality, people and animals have the same luck: one dies, and the other dies, all have the same breath of life, and man does not surpass animals. All are short-lived. Everyone walks to the same place, all come from the dust, and all return to the dust” (Ecl 3:19-20). 

The reflection of Qohelet is disheartening—it offers no more light than human reasoning. The psalmists have begun to intuit a valid answer to this question that has always anguished humanity. They understood that one should not begin with philosophical reasoning about the immortality of the soul. They invited people to reflect on the logic of love. If God has entered into a dialogue of love with humanity, and if his love is authentic, then He is not playing with us. For example, the author of Psalm 16 concludes his prayer by saying: “You, oh God, cannot allow your saint (according to the translation, but the Hebrew word is ‘hasid’, which means ‘your beloved’)… You cannot allow your beloved to stay in Sheol. You must show me the way of life; what is the meaning of life to get out of Sheol, because you cannot be without my company. And now, says the psalmist, you will fill me with joy in your presence, eternal joy at your right.” 

These intuitions of the psalmists are correct, but they still do not have a sure answer about the meaning of our existence. It is on the night of Easter that God has given a definitive answer to this question. Let’s try to imagine we are on Calvary on the afternoon of that Friday, April 7, in the year 30, the day Jesus was crucified. Joseph of Arimathea is moving away after having rolled that great stone in front of the tomb. He witnessed the ignominious death of a righteous one—one who had lived lovingly and only lovingly. I think his reflection led him to conclude, with the words of Qohelet: “The same fate touches everyone: the innocent and the guilty, the pure and the impure, the one who offers sacrifices and to the one who does not offer them, to the just and to the sinner, to the one who swears and to the one who is hesitant to swear… the same fate comes to all … man’s heart is full of evil during his life and he ends is with the dead!” (Ecl 9:2-3). 

Joseph of Arimathea must have ended like this … disconsolate. Darkness and silence descended over the city of Jerusalem. The families are gathered in their homes, celebrating the paschal dinner. Nobody moves because the great rest has begun. And this is how the Sabbath of the Hebrew Passover takes place. Jesus has been laid in the tomb, and the people are gathered in their homes for the paschal supper. Saturday begins, and at sunset that Saturday, the new day begins. 

And some women leave their houses because the Easter rest is over. They are the same ones who have traveled the distance to the Master’s death and burial.

Let’s listen to the narration:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could 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?’

Before engaging with this Gospel text, it is important to note an error that an inattentive reader may make. Who are these readers? They are those who read the Easter narratives of the four evangelists as if they were four pages of a chronicle. And what happens to these readers? They are immediately confronted with inconsistencies and contradictory, irreconcilable information. 

As we will hear shortly, Mark, for example, says that the women saw ‘a young man’ in the sepulcher. Luke says there were ‘two men’. Matthew describes a great scene. He says: “Suddenly there was a strong tremor: An angel of the Lord came down from heaven, came and rolled the stone and sat on top. Her appearance was like that of lightning, and her dress was white as snow. The guards began to tremble with fear, and they were as dead. The angel said to the women: You do not fear.” (Mt 28:2-5).

As a result, the poorly educated reader is disoriented and confused, asking, What is it that these women have seen? Who can explain this? The intelligent reader asks another question: what do the evangelists want to tell me… what images do they use, what language do they use? Therefore, we must distinguish the message, the language, and the images that convey it.

We cannot treat these images as a chronicle. We must keep this in mind to truly understand the evangelist’s message. On this Easter night, we find the version of this Easter experience as narrated by Mark. We will try to understand what the evangelist wants to tell us. We begin by explaining why the women go to the tomb. Mark says they are going to anoint Jesus’ body. It seems like information, but it is not. There was no custom of anointing the corpse; the corpse was only washed, dressed, and then wrapped in a sheet. 

In fact, Matthew and John say that the women went to visit the sepulcher. This was certainly done at that time, because for three days after the burial, people visited the deceased to mourn and to make sure that the death was definitive, since the burial was done immediately after death and there could be cases of only an apparent death. This is why women—as Matthew and John mention—visited the sepulcher. Why does Mark introduce this anointing? First of all, I will say that the evangelist wants the reader to reflect on and meditate on the gesture these women are about to perform. It is the only thing that the person can do facing death: anointing a corpse, embalming it … but what do you get? He who embalms a corpse does not conquer death … he builds a monument to the victory of death. 

That’s why the evangelist urges us to reflect: no person, no matter how capable, can overcome death. Those who seek to prolong life in any way will receive only palliatives. But there is another reason. To anoint the body of Jesus, women must roll the stone that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. Yet that stone is immovable. 

The evangelist Mark wants to draw attention to this stone. One can embalm a corpse, but one cannot move the stone. When one dies, one is separated forever from the world of the living. These are two worlds. They no longer communicate. Man cannot open the door to establish communication between these two worlds. Let’s try to imagine what these women expected that Easter morning when they went to the tomb. You could imagine a ‘reanimation’—as we said before. But in the case of Jesus, whose body was crushed, this resuscitation was absolutely impossible. They could expect a ‘resurrection’ according to the prevailing conception, although not all the people of Israel believed in it. The Pharisees believed in a ‘resurrection’ but understood it as a ‘reanimation’ of a corpse. But when did they expect this ‘resurrection’? After hundreds, thousands, or millions of years. They said that when the Messiah came, the kingdom of the Son of Man, the righteous would recover their lives. 

This conception had appeared two centuries before Christ. And it is the hope of the resurrection that Martha believed in when she says to Jesus: ‘I know that my brother, being righteous, will be resurrected when the kingdom of the Son of Man arrives.’ But only the Pharisees believed in this resurrection. The Sadducees despised this belief. And the ordinary people had other problems … they did not worry about this issue of the resurrection. Jesus had spoken of the resurrection. He had said that whoever believes in him does not die. What ends is the biological life, but the life of the Eternal that he has introduced into this world, and that it is given not to the dead but to the living … this life is not touched at the end of the biological life. Jesus spoke of a life that does not end, a ‘no-death’. But the people had not understood what he had said.

Another light—the light of Easter—was needed to understand what Jesus had said about victory over death. Not an extension of biological life. Let us pay attention: this life is not given to the dead; it is given to the living. We do not die because we have this life given to us by the Eternal. “Very early, when the sun had risen, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb.”

We have three important indications of time. The evangelist insists on saying ‘very early’ – ‘when the sun had risen’. I would not want to exaggerate the allegorical meaning of the symbol, but the evangelist’s insistence invites us to think that he is alluding to the new light that is about to conquer the world’s darkness. That ‘darkness’ that has enveloped all humanity in despair. Now, this darkness is about to disappear; the light of a new day breaks. And the women said: Who will move the stone? It is an obstacle that human force cannot move. Only an intervention from heaven can open the communication between the two worlds.

Let’s listen to what the women who go to the tomb discover:

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 that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.’

The evangelist Mark notes that when the women go to the tomb, they “looked up.” This means that, until that moment, their eyes were on the ground. It is not a minor detail. Mark was not present. Therefore, by saying that they ‘looked up,’ Mark is giving us a message. These women are the image of what humanity has done up to that moment: People have sought the answer to the enigma of death, keeping their eyes on the earth. They have placed life expectancy in technical resources, in science, in mummification… with a look toward the earth, they have only gotten there. Today, the techniques are different. They can be called ‘cloning,’ ‘hibernation’… but the goal is the same: make this life eternal. And the answer is sought on earth, and the result will be the same as always. The most one can get is a prolongation of the old age of this biological life. 

Victory over death cannot come from the world. Facing the sepulcher—any sepulcher—Mark invites us to do what the women did: look up. Let yourself be enveloped by the light that comes from heaven. And the women, who have raised their eyes, realize that the stone, which no mere human strength could move, has been moved from above. It has been rolled outside. Someone has done what they could not. Someone has reversed the power of death. Jesus has entered the sheol and emptied it. He has conquered death. 

You can see the door on the floor when Jesus enters the sheol, and this door has ended with death… They see death running away, defeated forever. Victory over death in the sense of prolonging biological life is not victory over death… for death returns, ready to take possession of the prey. Victory over death occurs only when life is given to death, when the biological life that ends is given to death, but to this man, a life has been donated that the monster of death cannot touch. The women enter the tomb. They have passed the border. They have come into contact with the world of the dead.

They expected to find the dead in Sheol, the elders… instead. And here is the surprise. They see a young man. Here is a Greek word: ‘neaniskon,’ a word we already encountered last week when we saw this young man in Gethsemane, when he left the sheet in the hands of those who wanted to apprehend him… and he left the sheet in their hands and fled, naked. Here we find the young man again. And it is the only time this term ‘young’ appears here, in the sepulcher. And now he is not wrapped in a sheet, but in a white, splendid garment. 

It is the sign for these women who enter sheol expecting to find the old life, death, but now find that life is young. They do not find an old life. In sheol, in the underworld, and together with Jesus, a life has entered that will always be young. One does not grow old in God’s world because time does not pass. And this young man is sitting ‘to the right’. The Greek term is ‘entois dexios’… on the right… Everything is positive, everything is beautiful in this world where women are expected to find corpses. Everything is beautiful because it is about the new world, the world of God, the world of the Eternal.

The white garment is the symbol of light, of celebration, of joy. The women are scared. The reaction is surprising. We would expect joy, but instead it is stupor. Here we have a Greek word: ‘ecstasy.’ It is as if they had gone out of themselves and entered a world that was not expected. They are puzzled. This encounter with the celestial messenger rightly causes stupor. Fear, trepidation… are the normal reactions when the Bible narrates the encounter with the world of God, with the divine. 

And Mark, more than the others, emphasizes this reaction of fright in these women. This is the first point. This young man tells the women, “Do not be afraid. You seek Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified one.” These are two extremes in the public life of Jesus: Nazareth, from where he begins, and Calvary, where he is crucified. This life has entered the world of God. “He is not here, he is risen. Look at the place where they had laid him.” They hoped to find not only the deceased in Sheol, the beloved person who had been buried by Joseph of Arimathea… but all the dead had to come out of Sheol. And this young man says: NO. Here, life is young.

When the life of the Eternal entered with Jesus, he made this limbo, this sheol, disappear. God has intervened. The fate of this crucified man has changed. And this is the invitation the young man gives the women: “Go now to tell his disciples and Peter that he will go before them to Galilee. There they will see him, as he had told them.” It is the assignment given to these women. Not to tell of the experience they had, but to invite the disciples to go to Galilee, so the disciples can make the experience that those women have done. 

What does this invitation mean? The disciples must retrace the path they followed the Master… They have not seen where the life given ends. They must go back this way, and at the end of the journey, they will realize that He was right. And, like the centurion, they will recognize in the face of Jesus, who gives his life, the face of God, who is love and only love. And they will perceive within themselves the voice that will assure them: ‘If you live like him, out of love, you will enter with him into the world of the risen ones.’ 

It is the experience this young man invites us to have. Take this gospel according to Mark into your hands again. Depart from Galilee, walk with the Master through his life, and, like the disciples, we will also reach Calvary. Because he has given his life for love. And God is love and only love. What do the women do? “They ran out of the grave ….” 

The evangelist Mark says that they were “scared and in ecstasy. And out of sheer fear, they said nothing to anyone.” We see this theme of ‘fear’ again, and the Gospel of Mark concludes with the same words: “And out of sheer fear, they said nothing to anyone.” There is no book of world literature that ends in this way. The reason is very clear. The Gospel of Mark does not end—it begins, because we have to return to Galilee. Then, leaving Galilee and walking under the gaze of the one who gives his life, this journey, echoing the centurion’s words, is concluded. Why are the women afraid? 

The fight is a theological reason. These women represent the Christian community… why are they scared? If they had met the body of Jesus, they would have cried… they would have said: here is a righteous one who finished his life this way, and we will mourn him throughout our lives. And then their lives would have continued exactly as before, with their questions, projects, and dreams. And the apostles would also have continued to live the same kind of life as before. Nothing would have changed… only the memory of this Jesus of Nazareth would remain. If so, they would not have been scared.

Why are they afraid? Faced with the resurrection, if he was right… everything changes. If he was right, it means that a full life is not to be kept for oneself, retreating into oneself, but that the successful life is one donated for love. And this is scary. If we are not afraid, we have not understood the Easter proposal. The successful person is the one who is introduced to the glory of the Father; he who is really the Son of God is the one who has given his life. The one who has experienced Easter cannot help but be afraid. If he is not afraid, it means that he has not understood.

There is another reason: “Do not say anything to anyone.” Why not say anything to anyone? It is the very fear we also have today as we announce the Risen One and the Easter message. When we announce the moral proposals made by Jesus of Nazareth, we rejoice. There is no humanism more beautiful than the one proposed by Jesus. The beatitudes are the apex of the proposals people can make to be fully human. But the temptation is to stop there. And Christian humanism, the one Jesus proposes, has value even without Easter, because in the depths of our person we know that the true man is the one that Jesus proposes… not the one who kills, who oppresses, who offends, who steals. NO. But the one who loves. This is really a person. The alternative is still the time of the beasts. This proposal would remain standing even without Easter. 

When it comes to announcing life beyond life, the life of the Eternal that has been given, we also find ourselves in trouble. We are afraid to announce this truth, which completely changes the way we relate to the reality of this world. It changes the way we see life, family, money, career … it changes everything. And regarding this Easter perspective, we also feel shy about presenting it. 

Sometimes, even during the celebration of the Easter Vigil, the preachers, instead of announcing (what should make the eyes shine) this victory over death, offer many recommendations… very interesting ones, but often they do not have the courage to announce this central truth of our faith: the life of the Eternal who overcomes death. But I think this silence of the women also has another meaning. Another message for us. 

The announcement of the Gospel opens with the women’s silence. They say nothing to anyone. It is the beginning of the proclamation of the Gospel. Return from Galilee. In Mark, these women, more than the image of those who run to announce the Easter message, are the image of those who listen and internalize their experience. Silence before the announcement is necessary. And with these women, and with all those who make the experience of Easter, there is an internal convulsion. It leads to a balance of life prospects that are completely new. It radically changes the meaning of existence when seen in the light of Easter. 

So, these women do not talk. First, they must be aware of the change that has occurred within them. They should recognize this inner jolt, and only then can they invite others to follow the same path to reach the vision of the Risen One.

I wish everyone a happy Easter.