I remember the first charismatic talk I listened to. Rev. Sr. Marie Antonita stood before us and proclaimed, “Jesus is Alive, and because He is alive, you can encounter him, and when you encounter Him, your life will never be the same.”All my life I had heard sermons that exhorted me to be righteous so that it would please God.

With those sermons it did not seem to matter whether Jesus rose from the dead or not. But this sermon was different. It promised action on God’s side. This Jesus she spoke of was not a concept or a great idea. He could come and meet me. He could change my life. She then shared testimonies of those who confessed of an encounter and how their lives had changed. There was sense of curiosity and expectancy that arose in me, which kept me coming back for more.

In today’s first reading, St. Peter, proclaiming that our Lord Jesus rose from the dead, says “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” The first factor that struck me was, although He had risen from the dead not everyone was able to see Him and encounter Him. Yet to those who He chose to become visible to, He was very much alive. St. Peter describes it in a word picture as follows: “ate and drank with us after he rose from the dead.”What was so special about the people He chose to reveal himself to? If we can discover the principles behind what made them members of this select band, we could corporate with God for our own experience, and discover that He is fully alive.

In today’s first reading, St. Peter describes our Lord Jesus with the following words:“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” He goes on to describe the “we” who were chosen to encounter the Risen Lord as “We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.”So, we get a clue about the first qualification of being part of the “we” who encountered the Risen Lord. We should spend time reading the Gospels and becoming familiar with what our Lord Jesus did and said, as much as those who followed Him around the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.

Let us look at today’s Gospel proclamation to further explore who it was that encountered the Risen Lord. The first person we meet is Mary Magdalene. She is the one from whom Our Lord Jesus exorcised seven demons. She was blessed by being ministered to. She loved the Lord deeply. So much so that she visits the tomb be- fore anyone else would rise. What is the point in visiting the tomb? The Lord is dead and gone. Everything was finished. Yet, the love that she had for the Lord, the gratitude she had for the Lord, the connection she had with the Lord, made her long for Him. If you continue reading the Gospel of John beyond today’s reading, you will discover that she remained at the tomb while the others left, and that is when she encountered the Risen Lord. For the one who seeks the Lord in darkness, the empty tomb, which is the place of disappointment and sadness, becomes the place of encounter. We also meet St. Peter and St. John in today’s Gospel proclamation. They come to the empty tomb, and they believe. The reading does not tell us whether they believed that Our Lord Jesus has risen from the dead, or whether they believed what Mary Magdalene said; that the body of the Lord had been removed. I presume they believed He had not risen. Do you not find it surprising that for they who witnessed so many miracles of our Lord Jesus raising the dead did not think that he would rise from the dead? Perhaps they prayed really hard asking God to save him after He was captured. When nothing happened, and they saw the extent of the torture inflicted on our Lord Jesus, they perhaps lost hope in God. To them the empty tomb would have been adding insult to injury. They needed Mary Magdalene to come back to them and tell them “I have seen the Lord” before they could encounter the Risen Lord. Today’s Gospel proclamation says that “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” St. John seems to imply that if they had seen the events through the light of a revelation from God, they would have known that God was working even when it seemed that nothing was happening. So, we gather those with a rational mind and those who have no revelation from scripture need the witness of a person who has had an encounter experience of the Risen Lord. This acts as a catalyst for their encounter experience. Easter Sunday transforms the empty tomb; the place of hopelessness, disappointment, and despair, to a symbol of hope that God continues to work when there seems to be no answer.

Prayer: Abba Father, grant us the grace to cling on to the Risen Lord even in darkness so that our own empty tombs become places of encounter. Amen