“Mary Magdalene saw the stone had been rolled
away from the entrance of the tomb.” (Jn. 20:1)
Rolling away the Stone
Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012
Acts 10:34, 37-43 Colossians 3:1-4 John 20:1-9
The first reading from Acts
The word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John
Glory to you, Lord.
On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone had been rolled away from the entrance of the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put Him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first. He bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. It was not lying with the burial cloths but was rolled up by itself. Then the other disciple, who had arrived at the tomb first, also went in. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand the Scripture which said He must rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back home.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
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Introduction
Nietzsche's murdered God
German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) is famous for his strange but intriguing declaration that “God is Dead." In his work The Madman, he places the expression in the mouth of a demented man who declares:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed Him. How shall we (murderers of all murderers) comfort ourselves? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has known has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to cleanse ourselves?
God murdered by Nazis
Nietzsche was right: man has the awesome power to murder God. On November 9th 1938, the Nazis murdered God, as they rampaged through Germany and in one night destroyed 7000 Jewish businesses and torched 191 synagogues. That night goes down in history as Krystallnacht (Night of the Shattered Crystal), and it marks the beginning in earnest of the Holo-caust. By the time Nazis had accomplished their `final solution of the Jewish problem,’ they had murdered six million Jews. The most prominent fatality of the Holocaust, however, was God Himself! Activist and author Elie Weisel is the Holocaust’s most well-know Jewish survivor. In a little volume entitled Night he recounts his first evening in the concentration camp of Buchenwald, when he saw the bodies of little children going up in smoke from the crematories. He writes:
That was the night which murdered my God and my soul, and turned my dreams into dust. Never shall I forget it, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never!
God murdered by 9/11/2001
Again, Nietzsche was right: man has the awesome power to murder God. On September 11th 2001 radical Islamists drove two 747s into the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan. It was a day New Yorkers and all Americans will never forget, even if they were condemned “to live as long as God Himself.” It took ten months of utterly grim labor at ground zero to haul away 2,000,000 tons of debris, 1600 identified bodies and 20,000 body parts. Again, the most prominent fatality of 9/11 was God Himself! One New Yorker, a security guard who lost more than thirty friends that day, said of that horrific event:
It was utterly barbaric the way their lives were taken. So I look at God now as a barbarian and I probably always will. My old God was murdered that day, and I don’t know how to bring Him back to life.
God murdered by the tsunami of 3/11/2011
Not only man but also nature has the awesome power to murder God. One year ago on March 11th 2011, a 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake occurred off the eastern coast of Japan. It caused a tsunami of over-whelming statistics: 27,000 people dead or missing. 318,000 people left homeless, and the cost of 306 billion dollars to haul away millions of tons of debris and to rebuild. Ominously topping those horrific statistics were the crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima Prefecture. The cost in human grief, physical pain, deep despair, irreparable loss and ominous fear of radiation is overwhelming. That tsunami did, indeed, murder God for Austin Kenny. In an article entitled God, Allah & the Tsunami Disaster he unambiguously declares his atheism. And what’s more, he openly expresses a thought which even we believers at times are tempted to entertain down deep within ourselves, especially in the tsunami moment of our own lives. Kenny writes:
Where was God when the tsunami hit? He was where he always was, in the imaginations of those who believe in him. He exists nowhere else. He can neither help nor hinder us. We have nothing to thank him for, nor do we have anything to blame him for. We are simply on our own!
A `saintly sinner’ who rolled away the stone
Nietzsche was right: man has the awesome power to murder God. But man also has the awesome power to raise God up from the dead. Fr. Mychal Judge (May 11, 1933-Sept. 11, 2001) had such awesome power. He was a priest of the Franciscan Order and beloved chaplain of the NYC Fire Department. On the apocalyptic day of 9/11 chaplain Judge rushed to ground zero, where he became the first recorded fatality of that infamous day. He had taken off his helmet to give the last rites to a dying fireman when suddenly a mass of debris came crushing down upon him. He died there on the spot, and his body was carried off by his fellow firefighters to nearby Episcopal St. Paul Chapel at 209 Broadway. There it was reverently laid on an altar. That solemn drama of Fr. Judge’s last moments crowned a life of extraordinary unselfishness. New Yorkers knew much more about Fr. Judge than just about his heroic death on 9/11. They had often experienced his playful character -- his legendary knack for story-telling and for bursting into old Irish standards at the drop of a hat. They experienced his great gift for making people feel as though they were the only ones in the room, and his bartender's knack of bringing strangers together. New Yorkers were amazed at Judge’s encyclopedic memory for people’s names, birthdays and passions, and were well-aware of his deep compassion for the City’s needy and forgotten.
But New Yorkers also knew Fr. Judge’s darker side. He was a recovering alcoholic who comforted alcoholics, assuring them they were not evil people. He’d tell them: “Look you’re not a bad person; you just have a disease that makes you think you’re bad.” Despite some raised eyebrows, he opened the doors of the well-known Church of St. Francis of Assisi on 31st Street in Upper Manhattan to Dignity, an organization for gay Catholics. He told the raised eyebrows, “They too need a place to pray.”And then to top it off, people saw him, clothed in his Franciscan habit, march quietly and dignifiedly in the first gay-inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City.
On September 15, 2001Cardinal Edward Egan presided at his funeral, in St. Francis of Assisi Church. The Mass was attended by a sea of 3,000 people. In that immense crowd were former President Bill Clinton and New York Senator Hillary Clinton. And when a memorial service was later held in the Anglican chapel of the Good Shepherd Chapel on Ninth Ave, cops, firefighters, lawyers, priests, nuns, homeless people, rock-and-rollers, recovering alcoholics, local politicians and middle age couples from the suburbs came flocking from every direction.
New Yorkers came flocking to celebrate a `saintly sinner’ who, by his utterly unselfish life and then by his heroic death on 9/11, raised God from the dead for them. New Yorkers came flocking to celebrate a 'saintly sinner' who rolled away the stone before the tomb of God, murdered quite soundly for them on 9/11.
Austin Kenny declares that “We are on our own,” whether it be on the occasion of the overwhelming tsunami of March 11, 2011, or the horrific attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. At the other end of the spectrum stands a `saintly sinner’ who, by his remarkably unselfish life and then his sacrificial death on 9/11, reassured New Yorkers that they are not on their own.
Conclusion
Rolling away the stone
Words fall short on Easter Morn. A homily which pretends `to prove’ that Jesus truly rose from the dead are never brilliantly successful. More successful in engendering Easter faith is the yearly return of the robin rolling away the stone before the tomb of winter, announcing the arrival of spring, and building her nest according to blueprint built within in her. More successful in engendering Easter faith is a vibrant parish rolling away the stone before the tomb of God, and making Him come alive with living Liturgy and living Word. More successful in engendering Easter faith is a `sinful saint’ like Mychal Judge who by his selfless living and heroic dying rolled away the huge stone before the tomb of God (soundly murdered on 9/11), and reassured New Yorkers that they were “not on their own.” Words fall short on Easter Morn. At the end of the day, there is only one good word for Easter: Alleluia! `Alleluia’ is an unintelligible exclamation - a kind of ecstatic babble - which wells up in our hearts because of nesting robins, vibrant parishes and `saintly sinners’ like Mychal Judge.
