Daybreak

At daybreak on the first day of the week the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened. (Luke 24.1-12)

For our reflection on this Easter Sunday, we want to look at the account of the resurrection as told in the Gospel of Luke that is found in the celebration of the Easter Vigil for Year C. The gospel text for Easter Sunday is always taken from the Gospel of John. However, since we are in Year C and will have Luke as our narrator for the year, I thought we should use his text even if it is not the reading for Easter Sunday. In my opinion, it is always good to see the different emphases that the various evangelists give to the story, something we might miss if we stayed with the Johannine text year after year as stipulated by the lectionary.

As we begin our look into Luke’s text, it is important to see that almost all of the activity is focused on women, a principal concern of Luke in his gospel as a whole. He, more than any of the other evangelists, wants to show the importance of women in the mission of Jesus of Nazareth. Of course, all four gospels agree that the first to find the empty tomb were women, or in John’s gospel, a woman, Mary Magdalene. 

Interestingly, the synoptics do not agree on the number or the names of the women who went to the tomb. Nor do they agree on what the women find at the tomb and there is some variation on what the women do after they have found the tomb to be empty. Still, Luke has more women at the tomb than any of the other writers, almost a caravan, going so far as to add to the three women he named “the others who accompanied them [who] also told this to the apostles.” 

Another of the more interesting differences that we find right at the start is when Luke tells us that “at daybreak on the first day of the week the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.” That simple sentence is pregnant with symbolism. While all the gospels state that the women went on the first day of the week–that is Sunday–Luke says that they went at daybreak, a departure from John’s text that states the women went while it was still dark. 

We should not breeze past this point. While it is always difficult to ascertain the historical fact of when the women made their trip to the tomb, it is not difficult to determine that Luke wants us to understand through his use of the word daybreak that not only is a new day beginning, but an entirely new age has begun. In other words, whatever happened yesterday or in the many yesterdays of past years is no more. Something new is on the horizon and the breaking of the sun announces that good news. We should expect to see in the first rays of the sun something we have not seen at any time in the dark days of the past.

Also, as we see, Luke says that these women had come from Galilee with Jesus. None of the other writers give us that detail. So why does Luke? Again, it is alerting us to the fact that these women have been with Jesus from the start. As such, they witness to the commitment and the constancy of the true disciple, unlike their male counterparts who are out of sight, nowhere to be found at this point.

For Luke, the fact that they have been “on the way” with Jesus from start to finish speaks volumes about their steadfastness. While there may be disbelief soon enough on the part of the men–and there was, Luke telling us they thought the story of the women “seemed like nonsense”– it is not a problem for the women who have been a part of the story every step of the way.

As they come to the tomb, they will see the clear proof that a new day has indeed broken through the ordinariness of every other day. That is made clear when they find that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, something that should not have been the case. Customarily, once the body had  been placed inside the tomb, a heavy stone was rolled in front of the entrance, a stone that was not easily dislodged.

But it is not the case on this particular daybreak. It was the first of several unexpected turns. Upon entering the open tomb, they find that it is empty, or as Luke describes it, “they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Again, this is not how things were supposed to go, made clear in Luke telling us that “they were puzzled over this.” After all, typically the dead stayed dead and a tomb stayed closed. That was what was expected.

There were more unexpected twists and turns. Suddenly, the women find themselves face to face with “two men in dazzling garments, appearing out of nowhere, standing before them.” Of course, the women were shocked out of their wits, Luke telling us that “they were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.” By the description of the pair of men and by the reaction of the women, Luke is making clear to us that these were celestial beings, not cemetery workers or grave robbers. 

If this description sounds vaguely familiar to us, it should. It is much the same as the appearance of celestial beings at the start of the gospel when Luke tells of the appearance of angels to shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem, “the glory of the Lord shining around them as they were struck with great fear.” And, as happened in that field, so happens in this tomb. The angels speak. 

At Bethlehem, they said, “Do not be afraid, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Here they say, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?” In both instances, they announce a new birth. As the child born in Bethlehem exhibited a new, living being, so the Lord Jesus, resurrected from the tomb outside Jerusalem, exhibits a new, living being. “He is not here,” the two men say, “he has been raised.”

Luke is not finished with the parallelisms. Next, he tells us that the women “returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.” It is precisely the same thing  that the shepherds had done after they had found the baby Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem. Luke described it for us in this way, “They went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told to them about this child.”

And what was the reaction of Peter after hearing what the women had said and after running to the tomb to see for himself? Luke says, “He was amazed at what had happened.” And what was the reaction of the people when the shepherds told them about what they had seen in the manger? “All who heard it were amazed by what had been told to them by the shepherds.” In my opinion, these duplications are neither incidental nor coincidental.

As Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem was announced by angels and heralded a new day, a decisive break from the old, so here in Jerusalem, angels again appear at daybreak, announcing once more that divinity had entered into the world of humanity, shattering the darkness and bringing with it new life. As Mary’s womb was empty after the birth of Jesus, so the tomb is empty after the rebirth of the Lord Jesus, both events making it clear that it will not be business as usual any longer.

There is still another point that we do not want to overlook in the story. When the women come face to face with the reality that a new day has broken, they rush to tell “all these things to the eleven and to all the others.” And what does Peter do after he has seen the tomb for himself, finding the burial cloths alone?” Luke tells us that “he went home, marveling at what had happened.” 

In other words, he is not prepared to announce the good news to others as the women had been. In fact, it will take a strong gust of wind from the Holy Spirit later on to get Peter out of his house and into the streets where he finally finds the spine to proclaim the break between the past and the present, between the expected and the unexpected, between the same old news and the startling good news.

So, having looked at the text on this Easter Sunday, what are we to make of it? Luke’s intentions seem rather clear. With the strong parallelism between the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and the rebirth of Jesus after his resurrection in Jerusalem, Luke wants it understood that something radically new and different has occurred, something not seen before. The hand of the Almighty has reached into the confines of the world and has brought a magnificent new life into a world dead tired from darkness and death. 

With daybreak, everything is now seen in a new light. All the old rules and old ways have been pushed aside in the same way that the stone was rolled away from the tomb. Nothing can be assumed to be ordinary any longer. The response to the shattering of the old has to be the same as that of the women who were the first to witness the new day and also like that of the shepherds who saw a new day dawn. We have to “announce all these things.”

In other words, we don’t go home as Peter did and do nothing. Rather, we witness to the new reality, a world that has been given a reprieve or an escape from the clutches of death. We are no longer indentured servants of death. We are freed from servitude to death, darkness, and despair. We live as people who walk during daybreak, not in darkness.

As such, we move through the world as agents of hope because we see the light where others can only see the dark. We do not accept death as the final word. Instead, we believe life can be resurrected in even the most godforsaken places. Love can grow even where hatred has parched the land. Hope can bloom even where despair has withered the spirit. And generosity can flood the terrain even where selfishness has dried up the last drop of giving.

Like the women, we turn away from the tomb and we turn towards the living, bringing with us each day the good news that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again into all the corners of this world that await a new birth. And as we leave the empty tomb so that we can announce all these things, we will learn that even the deadest graveyards of this world can be transformed into the greenest garden. Why? Because our God is a God of the living, not of the dead.

–Jeremy Myers