“He saw and believed.”
We are an Easter people, a people who sees and believes.
We saw Jesus went to Jerusalem. We saw Him with the Twelve at the Last Supper. We saw Him betrayed by the one most trusted. We saw Him denied by their own leader. We saw Jesus arrested, put into trial, sentenced, carried the cross, crucified, and died. Except for His mother and the beloved disciple, and a few others, we saw everyone else scattered and left Jesus. He was abandoned apparently even by His Own Father, from the very words of the one Himself hanging on the cross, the One whom we saw. But until then, they, we, only saw.
What was common among the Twelve, Mary, Magdalene, the scribes, Pharisees, and the chief priests, Pilate and the Roman soldiers, the crowd and the onlookers, until the event in today’s Gospel (Jn 20,1-9) happened? They were the people who only saw. And until then, what they apparently saw was only darkness.
When Mary of Magdala worriedly came to the tomb in the early Sunday morning, when Peter and the other disciple hurriedly ran to it, when the other disciple whom Jesus loved came in, what happened? “He saw and believed” (Jn 20,8). And we know, everyone else followed. They saw and believed. They saw Jesus resurrected and believed in Him. And they testified to their faith, even in the midst of persecution and death. They, we, have become an Easter people. Amid darkness and suffering, we see light and believe in the risen Christ.
We have already known and seen Jesus. But have we truly believed? It is now Easter! And we are an Easter people, a people who sees and believes, a people who finds light amid darkness, a people who finds hope and rise up in the midst of failure and crises. And why would we not? We are like the one who did it first, the other disciple whom Jesus loved. See and believe!
Felix Pascha! חג הפסחא שמח! Καλά Πάσχα! Buona Pasqua! Felices Pascuas! Joyeuses Pâques! Frohe Ostern! Happy Easter!
Fr. Erwin Blasa
