He saw and he believed
The gospel reading, we just heard shows us that on the morning of the resurrection the disciples did not see Jesus; they only saw an empty tomb. Mary Magdalene who came before the apostles went back and told Peter and John that they had taken the Lord away from the tomb. The idea of his resurrection did not occur to her mind at the time. When the two apostles came, they found the scene as Mary had described it: an empty tomb, the burial clothes, the cloth which had been around his head, and the stone rolled away, they saw nothing of the Lord.
It is striking to note that the unnamed disciple, who we presume to be John the writer, says that he saw and he believed. He had not believed when the Lord had explained that he would rise on the third day, yet now he believes when there is nothing to support the belief; only an empty tomb. He believed even if up to that point they had not understood the scriptures and what rising from the dead could mean. Something worked from inside his heart.
Where was Jesus when the disciples were bewildered at the empty tomb? I don’t think he had gone somewhere first and was yet to return to show himself to them. In his risen state he was past that stage of the necessity of being in one place and not the other. All the time he was there, watching them, knowing them from inside their hearts with the sentiments there, loving them. He probably worked from inside the heart of the beloved disciple to make him believe.
In a certain sense, we are like the disciples at the empty tomb. We too do not see him; we cannot hear him call our names like later Mary did. We cannot touch him like Thomas did. We cannot eat with him as Peter tells us they did. Yet he is here with us. he watches and sees what we do and listens to what we say. Sometimes he smiles when we do good; sometimes he is saddened. He is here loving us, and ready to work from within us and transform us. May he lead us to believe in him as he did the unnamed disciple, and may he bring us to the conviction which he brought in Peter whom we hear testifying to the risen Lord in the first reading, and persuading others to believe in him.
