Easter Tuesday

Readings: Acts 2:36-41; Psalm 33; John 20:11-18

The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of the new creation. It is on the eighth day that he rises and many of the accounts of his appearances evoke the first moments of creation. None more so than what we hear today, the encounter of a man and a woman in a garden, early in the morning, on the first day of the week.

The Lord is in the garden and Mary is seeking him, still believing that his body has been taken elsewhere. But as the first Adam named all living creatures, including the woman God had created for him, Jesus names her: 'Mary'. She is not now the generic 'woman' but herself, Mary of Magdala, a sinner by reputation and faithful companion of Jesus all through, even to the end. She is now the mother of all the living in another sense, as the first to encounter the Risen Lord and the first to speak the Easter proclamation: 'I have seen the Lord: He is risen!'

In naming her, Jesus brings Mary into the new reality, into the new creation. It is a kind of baptism for her: the Father of Jesus is her Father, His God is her God, and she must go and tell this to the disciples.

In the first creation God spoke and all came to be. In the new creation Jesus said 'Mary' and she is recognised and has her place there with Him. She too is to speak and very soon we see Peter and the others also speaking, telling of the resurrection and of the new reality it inaugurates. They too will be recognised by the Risen Lord, will be given their place in the new creation and  will be commissioned to go and tell others that He is risen.

So in the first reading today we see Peter, the impulsive and practical fisherman of Galilee, now become the Lord's rhetorician, orator of the new creation. He had probably not studied Cicero's works on rhetoric, or learned that the public speaker should inform, delight and persuade his listeners. But by some kind of infused grace - he is speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit! - he is a master of the craft. He speaks to inform them, he argues and exhorts them, they are cut to the heart - a particular kind of delight. They are convinced by his arguments, moved to act, and they say 'what are we to do?' Repent and be baptised, take your place in the new creation.

The new creation is a kingdom of encounter and conversation, of the Word being with His people and speaking to them, of those people coming to faith and in turn speaking to others, telling of all the happenings in Judea in these last days. We live our faith, and continue the story, by being together as His disciples, by witnessing to the kingdom He has established, by encountering others and speaking with them as Jesus did. As he encountered Mary and spoke with her, and the disciples, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, lepers and people possessed, his friends at Bethany, the disciples on the road to Emmaus ... 

We speak to inform, to delight and to persuade others. More importantly, He continues to speak to us in many and various ways, to inform us and delight us, to recognise us and call us by name, to convince us into the place He has for us in His kingdom. He meets us in His Word, in the sacraments, in the Church, in the poor, in the neighbour, in creation ... we do not need to ask where He has been laid for He is alive in all these ways. Later Saint Paul, continuing the story, will speak of this new creation as 'the mystery hidden for ages and generations ... that has now been made manifest ... Christ in you, the hope of glory' (Colossians 1:26-27).