I, like many people, have always been intrigued by the abrupt ending of Mark’s gospel: “So [the women] went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” That’s how Mark’s gospel ends. Strange, isn’t it? Actually, it may not be as strange as it appears. Is not fear a natural initial reaction to what the women discovered? Perhaps their perplexity, amazement and fear--and ours--are part of the story? Are not fear of the unknown and amazement at the fantastic prospect of death’s death actually the appropriate responses? A dead body is what we expect to find. Like taxes, death is the solid reality, the thing we can rely on absolutely and without question. And so the women come to anoint a corpse, but what they discover when they entered the tomb was the deeper reality of the risen Lord. What they knew, what we all know, as solid, dependable reality was stood on its head. Amazement and fear: what other responses could one make when one’s sense of what is real and true has been turned upside down?

We come here today expecting business as usual: to observe a time-honored religious ritual as a prelude to a big family dinner; but what we encounter is something we can hardly prepare ourselves for; because here we come face-to-face with that which is so perplexing and challenging as to be life-altering. What we encounter here is something no one could ever anticipate, plan for, or expect. As we peer today into the empty tomb we discover a whole new reality, a new world, a new self, a profound challenge to our perception of our own past, an alternative way to live and think and hope in the present, and a completely new prospect for the future.

Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Benedict XVI, was already a well-known and widely-respected theologian, and not just by Catholics. Last October he gave an address at the opening assembly of a synod of bishops. The theme of that address was one he has sounded often, that the Word of God is the foundation of everything and in fact is the one true reality, indeed the only reality, that one can count on. He said: “We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one’s life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds on sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. The realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent.”

And so, we might ask: What is that Word of God on which all things depend and which is the one true reality that makes all other realities impermanent and secondary? We hear that word today in the words of the young man the women encountered at the tomb: “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” This Jesus whom you seek, he cannot be found among the dead where we would expect him to be; no instead he who was crucified is to be found among the living. Indeed, he is life itself, the one true reality on which all other realities depend and from which they derive their true meaning, purpose, and goal. He is the true reality because in him is the future of all things. Consequently, everything that seems so real, solid, enduring—things like family, property, reputation, investment portfolios, success, health, the good life—these have only the appearance of reality because they are ephemeral and transient. This truth has come home to us especially in the course of the current disturbing economic climate. Only the word of God, a mere word that seems so weak and ordinary, the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, a word that was revealed to but a few key witnesses and would seem to be just one more claim among many other truth claims, and thus relative and questionable, this reality that frightened and amazed those first witnesses as it amazes and perplexes us still, is nevertheless the foundation that is built on rock, the cornerstone of all that is permanent and dependable and good and true, the bedrock of all that is now real and of all that is to come.

Still, we live in a dream world. In fact, we are the hands-down masters of self-delusion and denial. A couple of years ago, on the day my mother died, I was in my office in the morning wrapping up some project. When the hospital called to say that I should get down there immediately, I misunderstood what they were concerned about, for I was convinced my mother had much more time. Just after she died, as I was attending to some paperwork the hospital wanted me to take care of, I mentioned to the hospital social worker, that while I deal with these matters all the time and am well-acquainted with the denial that so often affects members of the family in these situations, here I was massively guilty of it myself.

It is difficult for us to face facts and accept reality, for we prefer illusion. If we find it difficult to face up to the transient reality of death, how shall we confront the deeper and truer reality of life? We do not come here to honor a dead hero of an almost forgotten past, but the risen Lord who leads us and the whole world into his promised future. Don’t build your house on sand, or put your faith into that which is fleeting and cheap. Don’t become wrapped up in yourself, for even you are passing away: your truth is still before you as a gift still to be received. Do instead as Paul encourages and “hold firmly to the message that [is proclaimed] to you,” for then you will have built your house on the rock of faith that looks beyond and through this reality to the deeper, truer reality of what is coming for you and for the whole world in Jesus Christ.

One more thing: inasmuch as Jesus Christ recapitulates in himself the history and hope of Israel, then we cannot possibly fathom what is truly real if we insist on separating Jesus from his people. We cannot talk about Jesus and not talk about Israel; for the true reality of creation, the culmination of which is the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, is wrapped up in the history of God’s dealings with an Israel that was constantly in danger of annihilation and extinction. The threat of death hangs over nearly every moment of Israel’s history. Jesus, who was crucified for claiming to be king of the Jews, would seem to be the perfect capstone to that history—the end of a failed Messiah to a people teetering on the verge of annihilation. Now that’s reality! Or is it? If the true reality is that this Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified has been raised, then his cause, the cause of the God of Israel, has triumphed. Then he is in fact the true king, the vindication of Israel’s hopes and aspirations and of God’s promise of abiding faithfulness to her, the triumph of Israel as the light to the nations, the establishment of her God’s rule over every power and principality, God’s lordship over all things in heaven and on earth, Christ the new Adam and the future of all humanity. If this is true, then, to be sure, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone….[Therefore] this is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

-Amen-