A TRIO AT THE TOMB
In the Gospel which is read every Easter Sunday morning (John 20:1-9) St. John speaks of three people who visit the tomb, and whom we may call the woman, the contemplative, and the leader.
The woman is first on the scene. She is the first to see that something has happened, the first to pass on the news, though she doesn’t yet realise that it is Good News.
Then the contemplative arrives, the one who was closest to Jesus during the Lord’s earthly life, the one who stood by Him as He was crucified. He reaches the tomb before the leader, but he doesn’t go in. He makes way for the leader, for Peter, that somewhat unsteady rock.
Peter, the leader of the Church, goes in. It is his prerogative to have first place—authority has its rights—but he doesn’t understand. The one who understands is the mystic, the contemplative, the friend of Jesus, who enters in his turn. He sees, and he believes. “Till this moment” we are told, “they had failed to understand the teaching of Scripture, that He must rise from the dead.” Until the moment that the friend of Jesus sees, and believes, the Church, including its leader, is without understanding. The implication is that now they do understand.
I suspect that it is no accident that it is John, the contemplative, who reaches understanding before Peter, the leader. Leadership is no guarantee of insight. Leaders need the people of insight to show them the way, just as the people of insight need the leaders to keep things steady, to make sure that they don’t go charging off down byways.
There is an important lesson here for the Church: namely that we need both Peter and John, and that both of them need to play out their own roles. We need the contemplatives, the theologians, the people of prayer, the people of study, to gain insights into the love and the call of the Risen Christ. Indeed, in our own way, each one of us needs to be a contemplative, a person of prayer, a friend of Jesus, someone close to Him: each one of us needs to be a theologian, someone who ponders the things of God.
But we also need Peter, the leader, the one in authority, to whom John can and must refer his insights, to ensure that they are consistent with the faith of the Church. Peter has his role, and John has his, and that is as true today as it was when the two of them approached the empty tomb.
[It is difficult to shake off the feeling that there is a danger at present of Peter forgetting the importance of John. There is a great deal of emphasis today on authority, and rather less on insight. The implication seems to be that Peter has, not only the authority, but also all the insight. John is at risk of being squeezed out.]
Let us go back to that empty tomb. Let us remember that it was John who, while showing due respect to Peter, nonetheless was the first to understand, the first to believe. But let us consider something else too. Let’s not forget that there were three people at the empty tomb, not two. The first on the scene was the woman, and as St. John’s Gospel goes on to describe, it was she who was to be the first to meet the Risen Christ, and to pass on His instructions to the Church. I suspect that we haven’t even begun to think about the implications of that.
[I wrote this in 2012, and it was published in the Lancaster Catholic Voice. We know now that the possible over-emphasis on authority was less the work of Peter himself than of powerful members of the Curia, as Peter, in the person of Benedict XVI, was in failing health. Now we may, I think, feel that balance has been restored, though Mary of Magdala is still waiting for due recognition.]
We need to remember, though, that, important as the woman, the contemplative, and the leader may be, there is someone of far greater significance. Jesus the Christ must be the one focus of our attention, and He is risen. Our thoughts about the Church must never distract us from the one thought necessary: Jesus is Lord, and He is risen from the dead. We cannot repeat that too often, for it is what gives point to the Church, to our lives, and indeed to the whole of creation. If Christ were not risen, we would be, as Paul points out, the most wretched of all people. He is risen, and so we are the most blessed people of all, and the whole of life is blessed, has meaning, and is forever transformed. Christos aneste –Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, alleluia.
