“Christos Anesti!”
Christ is risen. Mary Magdalene held up an egg to show Caesar, the emperor Tiberius, a symbol of new life, of Christ bursting from the tomb.
She had traveled a long way to meet with the emperor and to let him know the news.
Caesar just laughed at her and said, “A man can no more rise from the dead than the egg in your hand turn red.”
As he spoke, the egg turned red in Mary Magdalene’s hand.
So goes the legend of the first Easter egg. From early on in the history of the Church Christians have greeted one another with red eggs on Easter and proclaimed, “Christ is risen!”
New life bursting through the hard shell, the prison of the tomb.
Christ is risen, a proclamation of mystery and miracle, of confrontation and consternation, of terror and trepidation.
Mary Magdalene first heard the news from a mysterious figure seated in the empty tomb, a young man dressed in white robes, “He has been raised; he is not here.”
The Easter Gospel today confronts us with a tomb that has been burst open like an egg.
Listen to the words that surround the encounter: alarmed, terror, amazement, seized, fled, afraid.
This is how Mark ends his Gospel, with fleeing and the last word is, “afraid.”
An empty tomb, women running away in fear, and looking ahead to seeing Jesus in Galilee as he had said. That’s how it ends. No risen Jesus, just a mysterious figure in the tomb
saying to go find Jesus in Galilee where the whole story started to begin with.
Why the fear?
That mysterious figure was probably an angel, angels tend to terrify people.
But the fear was also because of the news that Jesus was risen.
The resurrection of the dead is the sign of the arrival of God Kingdom, the arrival of God’s Judgment. Not so much as people talk about the end of the world these days. They would have seen it not as an ending but rather a beginning, as if the world were finally waking from the long sleep of death. What would this awakening bring? What was going to happen next? So they were terrified.
And that is where the story drops off. Mark does not leave us with a glorious triumph. We are left wondering how did they go from fear and silence and fleeing to proclaiming and boldly facing persecution?
We are left with the confrontation and challenge of faith, faith that the cross of Christ has broken apart the old order of life on earth and that a new way of life has begun, a life where fear and death are no longer the last word. There is a new kingdom where love and life are now the final word.
Death is no longer the last word. Life is now the last word.
The tomb is empty.
He has gone before us.
We will see him on up ahead for he is risen.
Give red eggs. Tell everyone.
Be that miracle of life bursting through the tomb.
Christ is risen!
Alleluia!