THE DIFFERENT "NEW"

Tuesday in the Octave of Easter
Jn 20:11-18

Easter is not only about life. It is not only about a beginning. Rather, Easter is about the gift of new life and new beginning from the Lord. Were Easter is only about life, why be excited over it when it is nothing but a humdrum of the usual? Were Easter is only about beginnings, what do we gain; it is the same as the other beginnings heretofore? No, Easter is about new life and a new beginning. It is the new that makes the difference, neither the life nor the beginning.

But “new” does not mean a mere polishing of the old so that what is claimed to be new is actually the old. “New” means being ontologically different from the old, not a recycled form of what once already there.

When Jesus rose from the dead, His resurrected body was not the old one given a new luster. Resurrection is not recycling. The empty tomb that welcomed Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday was not a previous receptacle of the dead Jesus. It had become the very remains of the new Christ. The former body of Jesus was not there because there was no more former body to talk about in the first place. When Jesus stood before Mary Magdalene after the resurrection, Mary Magdalene failed to recognize Him immediately because there were no signs of the old in the new. The resurrected body of the Lord was totally unfamiliar to Mary Magdalene. The resurrection rendered the presence of the Lord radically new. Jesus had to make Mary Magdalene “see” Him by calling out her name, “Mary.”

The Resurrection of Jesus is not a mere continuation of the usual life of Jesus before His death. It is the fulfillment of His life. And through it, all human life finds its fulfillment. Thus, we may say that the Resurrection of Jesus changed the tomb into a womb. For the dead rises from the tomb but the new man comes out from the womb.