The Darkness Will Not Overcome It

 HOMILY, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY – EASTER DAY, YEAR B

APRIL 4, 2021

 

TEXT:                        JOHN 20:1-18

 

            The story is now complete.

 

            At least, John’s version of it.

 

            It is a story which begins 20 chapters earlier, with his famous prologue. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it,” he tells us.

 

            And now the story reaches a climax – unanticipated by Jesus’ followers. Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ close friend. comes to the tomb where the limp body of her Lord had been laid on Friday.  The light had been extinguished. Darkness ruled, as far as she knew. Darkness had overcome the light.

 

            `But she encountered a mystery – one she could not fathom.  The tomb was empty.  No body was to be found there.  She was dumbfounded.. confused. She went and told Peter and John – others who had seen the light.  They went and found the tomb empty, as Mary Magdalene had said.

 

            But Mary returned.  She wept. She says to the one she thinks is the gardener: “What have you done with body? Let me know, and I will get it.”

 

            Jesus said: “Mary.”

 

            The light returned. A stunning, overwhelming, beautiful light.  She did not know it at that point, but the light emanating from that tomb would be the light for all people, would shine in the darkness, and the darkness, indeed, would not overcome it.  Not even today.

 

            I wonder how many of us have dwelt in darkness at some point in our lives.  I suspect that if we are truthful with ourselves, we have all uttered the words St. Paul wrote in his Letter to the Romans: Broken as I am, who will save me from this Body of Death?

 

            Our reasons for and circumstances of brokenness are as many as there are of us – maybe more.  We have all had our feet placed on the bottom at some point.  It has been dark.  We felt like Mary at the tomb.

 

            Maybe it was not in an instant.  Maybe it was over some length of time.  But we saw the light.  In some way, Jesus called your name. The dark corners of our souls were illuminated.  “The light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

 

            It was the same light that shone in that garden tomb – an empty tomb.  It testified to the power of God to redeem our losses, in some way we could not anticipate.

 

            On this day, John’s story reached full circle.  Ours will, too, now, in the past, or in the fullness of time.