Where Are You in Your Faith Journey?

On the first day of the week,

Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,

while it was still dark,

and saw the stone removed from 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 there,

and the cloth that had covered his head,

not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.

Then the other disciple also went in,

the one who had arrived at the tomb first,

and he saw and believed.

For they did not yet understand the Scripture

that he had to rise from the dead.

So which of the people in today's gospel do you relate with? 

Are you Mary, who has found the tomb empty but does not realize what has happened? Have you accepted the belief in Jesus but not truly the resurrection and what it means to us? 

Are you the unnamed disciple, who is on the verge of total acceptance of our risen Lord, but stops just short of experiencing the whole resurrection and its glory? Have you stopped outside the tomb, not quite there yet?

Are you Simon Peter, who has the courage to embrace the risen  Lord and make the tomb entrance, letting him become a party our life in a total and new way that maybe a bit alarming and hard to understand?

The truth is that each of us is all of these. At various times n our life we become the one who does not grasp the faith,  or the one that doubts the faith,or the one that has the boldness of pure acceptance. Our faith journey is just that, a constant trek through this world in the hope of coming ever closer to a true experience of God. It is why we consider ourselves the Pilgrim Church, since our journey will never end until we are at home with the Father. And just as we, when we are children, when we are young adults, when we are adults middle and senior age, we make choices and learn and grow from those choices. And at any moment in our lives these choices lead us to be the person who is far from the tomb, or the person who is almost at the tomb, or the person who has reached that goal. 

Easter gives us the chance to move closer to the tomb. The tomb that no longer holds death snide, but rather the glorious light of a new light, a new life, in Christ Jesus. Keep journeying toward the tomb, wherever you currently may be. And never lose hope. Always have hope in an Easter morning.

Have a blessed Easter.