KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 5 April
Be not afraid
“Be not affrighted. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: He is risen, he is not here: Behold the place where they laid him.” Mark’s gospel offers simple words that describe the utterly unexpected yet utter reality of human experience. The women come to the tomb of Jesus seeking his body so that they might anoint it with burying spices. They find the stone rolled away from the door of the tomb and “a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe.” The details are precise. He tells them not to be afraid or amazed and acknowledges why they have come and tells them that “he is risen.” Such is the beginning of the early accounts of the Resurrection. The dominant message is “be not afraid.” Yet, the so-called short ending of Mark’s gospel, ending at verse eight of chapter sixteen, ends with the words: “they were afraid.” Fears ‘r us, too.
Out of the horror and radical injustice of Christ’s Crucifixion comes Resurrection. What does it mean? The Easter accounts of the Resurrection show us the process of learning its meaning, the dawning awareness of the radical life of God made visible in Christ lifted up on the Cross and now lifted out of the grave. “He is risen. He is not here,” the women are told. Something has changed and something changes for them and for us. Be not afraid.
The Resurrection reveals the truth of Christ’s passion. Holy Week in its concentration on the accounts of the passion would be impossible to contemplate apart from the Resurrection which is its underlying truth. To paraphrase Sophocles, “all that we see here is God,” in and through the Passion and Eesurrection of Christ. Heraclitus’ insight that “the way up and the way down are one and the same” provides perhaps a way to enter into this mystery, the radical mystery of life. The way to the principle, to God, and the way from God, is nothing less and nothing more than God himself in his own self-complete motion and life and that motion and life in us. What is new at Easter is the making known of that eternal truth and motion for us and in us. We are allowed to see the process of how that idea and truth is grasped and known and how it sets us in motion towards one another.