Easter Monday
Acts 2:14,22-33
Mt 28:8-15
While they were on their way, some of the guard went off into the city to tell the chief priests all that had happened.
When I was going through the readings for today, I was slightly surprised to see that the Gospel passage – for Easter Monday, the day after our Lord’s triumphant resurrection, the day after the central event of our faith – did not focus on either Jesus nor his apostles but instead, on ‘secondary characters’ such as Mary Magdalene and another disciple also named Mary. In fact, half the Gospel dwells on unnamed people who were not Jesus’ followers and who actively sought to cover up the truth of His rising!
Nevertheless such ‘behind the scenes’, almost unpleasant details add realism to the narrative. They also remind me of the persecution Jesus faced and the controversy surrounding His rising from the dead, which contributed to the challenges the early Christians faced when spreading the Gospel. Not withstanding the efforts of the chief priests and the guards, I was quite intrigued about the theories, investigation and research to verify whether events in the Bible, including the Resurrection, had taken place. An example of a theory is the criterion of embarrassment (watch here from 14:32 – 18:20 for Fr Mike Schmitz’s take on this passage), which proposes that the inclusion of scenes deemed as embarrassing or unflattering make it more likely that the overall account is historically authentic. This seems to be a slightly ironic example of how everything we do (or even don’t do) can give glory to God, as well as how our Lord can work through all sorts of circumstances to fulfil His plans.
Building on this, perhaps today’s Gospel is also a reflection that every one of us has our own part to play in God’s plans too, whether we regard ourselves as worthy or not, whether we are even aware of it or not. We usually focus on characters such as the twelve apostles or other well-known figures such as Mary Magdalene, Martha, Mary and Lazarus; but the passage’s inclusion of ‘the other Mary’ is a lovely reminder that Jesus had numerous disciples, all of whom loved Him and served Him in their own way, even if they are not mentioned.
The description of the guards at the tomb also made me recall the 2016 movie The Risen, which depicts an agnostic centurion who gets to know Jesus through his investigation of the event of the Resurrection. Though the story is fictitious, I was quite moved by its message of how our Lord reaches out to us in His own ways, and I would like to think that the soldiers at the tomb gradually came to accept the truth of Jesus’ resurrection too.
But in the meantime, perhaps we can be inspired by today’s reading to continue persevering in our efforts to know our Lord better and become more like Him (albeit with some relief from our Lenten penances), reassured in the knowledge that He knows and sees every single one of us, even if we don’t think of ourselves as the ‘main characters’.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Jaclyn Lam)
Prayer: Lord, help us remember that we are all part of the Body of Christ. Help us to love and appreciate one another, and to give our best in the duties which you have bestowed on us.
Thanksgiving: We thank you Lord, for how you love us, see us and know us better than we know ourselves. We thank you for willingly sacrificing yourself to save us.
OXYGEN 
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