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“Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark and saw the stone removed from the tomb.”

I have a question for you. Why was the stone removed from the tomb?

You are probably ready to say, “Father, that’s easy. I got this one. You see, when Jesus died, his body was placed into the tomb and the stone was put in place to seal the entrance. And then when he rose from the dead, he wanted to exit the tomb. But the stone was blocking the way out, so he rolled the stone away. Easy.”

Well, before you answer that hastily, I want to point something out. Do you remember what happened on the evening of Easter Sunday? Jesus appeared to the disciples and the Gospel notes that the doors were closed (Jn 20:19). Of course they were closed. The disciples were afraid for their lives. They feared that an angry mob would come looking for them and crucify them just as it did their master. They were hiding together, out of fear. Those doors were closed tight and locked.

And the Risen Lord came to them and stood in their midst. He did not need to open the doors. His glorious, risen body could pass through walls and doors. If he did not need to open the doors to enter the room to be with his disciples that evening, then he did not need to roll away the stone to exit the tomb that morning.

So again, my question: Why was the stone rolled away from the tomb?

The stone was rolled away for the sake of his disciples, not for him. Imagine if Mary Magdalene had come to the tomb early in the morning and found the stone right where it was, still sealing off the entrance of the tomb. The tomb would have been empty, but she would have had no idea. She would not have run to report the news to Peter and John. And so, they would not have come to see the tomb. They would not have seen the burial cloths (the shroud) there, nor the cloth that covered his head (the sudarium) rolled up in a separate place. John would not have been able to say that he “saw and believed.”

Although the Risen Lord had not appeared to his disciples (yet), he left them signs of his Resurrection so that they would come to believe even before they got to see him in his risen state.

The empty tomb was an invitation to deeper faith. And our celebration of Easter today is, likewise for us, an invitation to a deeper faith in the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is an invitation not merely for you to assent to a proposition while leaving the rest of your life unaffected, but to place the truth of the Risen Lord at the center of your life and to let your whole life be shaped by it.

An ancient homily for Holy Saturday places these words on Christ’s lips, addressed to Adam, but we can hear them as if addressed to us: “I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.”

Come, see that Christ’s tomb is empty. He is risen. He comes as a champion to claim those who are his own and as he rises from his grave, he comes to lift you out of yours.