[REFLECTION] Silent hope in the empty tomb

The disciples took down the body of Jesus from the cross, wrapped it in linen cloths, and buried it in the borrowed tomb near the garden. And for two days, there was silence.

On Holy Saturday, there is silence in the Church. No light. No colors. No liturgy. No activity. In our faraway parish, there were just few pious women who wore black veils as they followed the Mater Dolorosa procession at 3 o’clock at dawn on Holy Saturday. It is said, they were accompanying Mary as she sadly looked for Jesus, her dead son.

Then on the third day, Easter morning comes.

I have attended a lot Easter vigils, and they were all gloriously loud and bombastic. The Salubong site is full of “angels” on a mounted stage. The lights are bright and a band plays from behind. Mary’s statue, though still clad in black veil, is ready to explode in joy as its carrosa is all decorated with flowers. The statue of the Risen Christ appears, with Handel’s Messiah played in a loud speaker at the background. Everyone claps as the designated “angel” sings “Regina coeli, laetare, Alleluia.”

All these portrayals fall in contrast to what really happened that “first day of the week”, on the day of the Resurrection itself.

The women went there early; it was still dark. They were worried who was going to roll the stone for them. But in three accounts (Mark, Luke and John), the stone has already been rolled back. There was an angel, a young man, to tell them that Jesus has been raised: “You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him” (Mk. 16: 6). But Jesus was no longer there.

All they saw was an empty tomb and the burial cloths, nothing more.

Later, some of them met Jesus on the way. Mary Magdalene even mistook him to be the gardener. The two disciples did not recognize the stranger on the road. The angel told them: “Go to Galilee. There, he will meet you.” Like the empty tomb, Galilee was the symbol of the silence and simplicity that the resurrection is.

Hope comes not in the blare of trumpets but in simplicity and silence. Abraham “hoped against hope” because what he saw in front of him was barrenness and emptiness (Rom. 4: 13-25). Hope is not about what we see but what we do not see. That is why hoping is persistent waiting in patience (Rom 8: 25).

What do we learn from the empty tomb and Galilee about hope?

First, Galilee is not at the center. Jerusalem is. Many of the people there are either farmers or fishermen. The contents of Jesus’ parables and metaphors were from Galilee’s agricultural landscape — wheat and weeds, sparrows in the skies, lilies in the field, old figs and sycamore trees. His first disciples were also fishermen, and were called from the Lake of Galilee. They left their boats and followed him.

Second, Galilee is where all of it started. Its simplicity and silence is carried all the way to the empty tomb. It is the place of hope where the disciples were formed. There, they witnessed him preach, rebuked demons, do miracles and cure lepers.

It was also in the silence of Nazareth of Galilee where Jesus was formed by the simple life of Mary and Joseph. It was in one of its synagogues where he proclaimed his mission to liberate the poor and preach the good news of God’s kingdom. This is also where he was rejected and thrown away. Everything happened in the backward location and deafening silence of Galilee.

Third, the seeds of the Kingdom of hope were already present from the simplicity of Galilee to the silence of the empty tomb. The resurrection is already present in ordinary things. In their simplicity and silence, the everyday lives of people already announce the resurrection: the pearl of great price, the sower and the seeds, the light on the lampstand, the salt of the earth, the tiny mustard seed, the prodigal son, etc.

On the eve of the resurrection, I went around our little barrio by the sea in Oslob, Cebu. No one was there. It was still a bit dark because the sun has not fully risen yet. Yet in their silence, those little things around speak to me of the past of my childhood, as well as a future resurrection.

There was the beautiful sun, about to rise.

There were also small fishing boats. Like in Galilee, these are not motorized bancas. Fishermen use paddles even then till now. There I saw the coconut where simple people climb each day to harvest tuba, a sign of simple joys for rural folks. Like the wine of Jesus’ time, tuba is life.

These ordinary things, these simple folks, these silent spaces — like the life in Galilee and the silence of the empty tomb — will always be the sign of Jesus’ resurrection.

We are always tempted to look for hope in noisy politicians’ ayuda or their lousy budots. We always believe that power resides in the social media influencers and their fake news. We have always placed our hope on strongmen and women and we cry foul or blindly defend them tooth and nail when they are asked to take account. No, we are wrong.

Easter tells us that hope is found somewhere else.

The challenge is to decipher the meaning of the empty tomb. Jesus did come out of the stones radiant in his resurrected glory with the blare of trumpets and a heavenly host singing alleluia. The truth is: they saw nothing there but his burial clothes.

But in the silence of these simple things, peoples and spaces, hope is found. It is not as loud or clear as you think. But Jesus is truly risen.

The empty tomb is a message of a silent but persistent hope.

– Rappler.com

Father Daniel Franklin Pilario is the seventh president and third alumnus president of Adamson University in Manila. Born in Hagdan, Oslob, Cebu, Pilario belongs to the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) in the Philippines.