And he saw and believed

The Gospel according to saint John leads us from the silent night of Holy Saturday to the dawn of the ” First Day of the Week “.
With Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, we paid our last respects to the Lord’s tortured body . We brought the mixture of myrrh and aloes, we wrapped with love His body in the shroud of great value brought by Joseph of Arimathea, we removed from the face of the tortured victim the veil that had been laid upon at the descent of the cross to hide the blood, the knocks, the broken nose, and the deep wounds caused by the cap of thorns. We covered this noble face with the shroud’s linen, so light and supple, nicely woven, that came may be from far away India. And , with heavy hearts, we went out of the sepulcher, recently dug out of the wall of the former quarry that has become garden, very close to the Golgotha.

” It is finished” he said, down from the cross, before giving up his spirit. Yes, everything seems to be finished, completed: at least the One whom we loved has had a dignified burial. It is all that we could make for him, once Pilate, in his praetorium, alone, dismal, strangely sensitive, had allowed us to remove the body of the Lord contrary of all the rules regarding crucified people,

” The first day of the week “. This dawn there is the most beautiful of all the dawns that the world has known since the origins and that it will know up to the end of time. Beyond the sufferings, the cruelty of people, the unbound violence, the trampling of the just, the unfurling of hatred in all its hideousness, beyond the silence and the peace of the sepulcher, beyond the death of the Man-God, the day is going to get up, day of hope, day of victory, day of joy, day of exultation. ” Alleluia, He lives”. Everything is reborn, everything is again possible, the old world went away, a new world emerges. Nevertheless, outside, nothing seems to have changed. The sepulcher is there, the cross is there, the soldiers are there, sleeping, Caïaphas and Hanna are there, in their palaces , and all those who shouted ” crucify him, crucify him” are in their houses, with the taste of gall that leaves hatred, which is defeat of humanity.

But Marie Madeleine stands also there, she who had anointed the feet of the Lord with the nard of great value, and has wiped his feet dry with her hair, a few days before. In her great love, she had anticipated this day of gloomy death , and she has now fully, totally lived it. She does not have more than eyes to cry. But she is there, faithful, in the early hours of Easter. Then she is the first to discover the incredible, inexplicable fact: the stone which was rolled upon the entrance of the sepulcher has been removed, the sepulcher lay open, empty. Someone has stolen the body of my Lord! Without understanding the facts , she runs towards Peter and John: they, they will understand! I, I shall have only to cry, at the edge of the empty sepulcher.

Peter and John, “the other disciple whom Jesus loved ” ran together toward the sepulcher. The Church of the Institution and the Church of Love, the Church established by Jesus Christ and the Church led by the Holy Spirit ran together. John ran faster than Peter, but he stopped, and allowed him to pass. This is Peter who, from now on has authority, this is Peter whom I have to respect and whom I owe obedience. But Peter understood nothing. He entered the sepulcher, saw the shroud, empty, and the linen which had covered the face, that is the “sudarion”, folded in a place by itself, but Peter did not understand the meaning of all that, and went out, pensive, puzzled. John then entered . He saw the same strange disposition of the linen as Peter saw, and he understood. He understood because he loved. The shroud was indeed “lying there”, emptied of its contents, subsided on itself, flattened, but in order, as if nothing had been placed between its sheets, two days before. The veil which had covered the face of the dead Jesus, between the time of the descent of the cross to the time of the wrapping in the shroud, is also there, but “folded in a place by itself” also in an ordered way. So nobody stole the body, it simply disappeared, without disturbing anything of the order of the linen.

” And he saw and believed ” – the only possible explanation, the incredible explanation entered John’s mind and heart. Now did he remember of these strange, frightening words of the Lord, about his death and about what was to follow. At that time, when He said them, they did not understand the meaning of them, and they did not dare asking questions regarding them. Now all these words come back and everything light up, like in a jigsaw when it is almost complete. Jesus death had come, the third day after his death has come, the sepulcher is empty, the shroud is empty, as he foretold. Today God has glorified him. Now starts the eternal life, with Jesus as the first to enter into it, the first one of all men and women after him, for ages to come, till the end of the world.

.This evocation of Easter morning, at the light of the Gospel according to St John, and inspired by the image of the “man of the shroud”, imprinted for ever in the “Shroud of Turin”or “Holy Shroud”, has the limits of what St John says. It does not “explain” the Resurrection and don’t try to give a rational access to the mystery of Christ’s Resurrection. But it has the merit of not “idealizing” Easter, placing this event out of history, out of the material fact of Easter, reducing Christ’s Resurrection to a concept, or to a sentimental projection of the disciples desires. Easter is first of all a concrete, objective, historical reality. There has been a dead body, and this body disappeared without leaving any trace, and without disturbing the order of the funeral linen disposed around it. and then the risen Christ Lord showed himself to those who have been the more faithful, to the Holy women , to Mary Magdalene, to St John, St Peter, and then to the eleven disciples. Not only did He showed him, risen from the dead, but also He send them in mission, all over the world, to the World, to announce the “Good news”. And they made it.

Easter, the holy Easter Day, has a special meaning for Christian medical doctors, who, too, takes care of real, sick bodies, of real sufferings, and need a real, concrete, hope to live from day to day their professional commitment and the requirements of their Christian values. The Resurrection is very real, very concrete, and it concerns a real, concrete body, that of our Lord, wiped, beaten up, crucified, with his side opened by the blow of lance, with the head stained with blood from the thorn-made wounds. The Resurrection tells us that Christ has overcome sin and death, that death will not have the last word, that the Lord will always be by our side to help us in our very concrete mission toward our sick brothers. Christ is also risen for the sick and for those who are caring for the sick, that they may have his energy, his strength. He is energy, He is strength, He brings us Hope, beyond the suffering, the disease, the degradation of the body. He ask us in turn never to quit, never to give up, always to start again, in a continuous, day by day battle that opens to eternal Life.

Fr Jacques Suaudeau
Ecclesiastical Assistant FIAMC