Holy Saturday (the Easter Vigil), April 3, 2021

Mark 16:1-7

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him. Very early when the sun had risen, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb. They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back; it was very large. On entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were utterly amazed. He said to them, “Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. But go and tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.’”

The Gospel writers all make it clear to us that the women who followed Jesus were poised to go out and buy the prescribed spices for his proper burial as soon as the Law allowed the markets to reopen after the Sabbath.  The Body of the Lord had to be buried quickly on Friday because according to the Law, the dead had to be buried before sunset of the day they died.  The Lord having died late Friday afternoon with just a few hours before sunset, when the Sabbath began, and since no one could be buried on the Sabbath, there had been no time for anointing or anything of that sort.  

“Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”  The common people of the land were buried in the ground in a cemetery outside of the town where they died, with a marker for the grave.  The wealthy were laid in niches carved into solid rock in tombs which themselves were cut out of solid rock, or which were built out of stone.  Bedrock formations run up and down throughout Judea, and natural caves, some very large, offered ready-made hiding places for bandits — or holy hermits — in ancient times.  But they also provided the locations for numerous family tomb complexes.  The Body of Jesus had been laid in one of these.  There would be room enough in one for an entire family, with niches, like recessed benches, for the bodies of the deceased.  We see this in John 19, 41, which tells us that the tomb had not been used before the Body of the Lord was interred there — no family members had yet been buried there.  These tomb complexes were carved out of the rock with a single entrance, which would be covered by a rock that might well weigh several hundred pounds and be nearly impossible to move except by several men with levers.  St. Mark emphasizes this, relating that the rock “was very large”.  The question of rolling the rock back speaks to its great size and weight — purposeful, to guard against grave robbers — and also the haste of the women, since they had not thought of this before embarking on their mission.

To the amazement of the women, they found the stone rolled back, but with no sign of anyone who might have done this, or of the levers or ropes they would have used.  They may have stood outside, looking around a bit, before going inside.  Once inside, “they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe”.  It is not clear whether they had brought a lamp for their proposed work in the tomb, or whether it was partially lit by the rising sun, or whether the “young man” cast off light himself, for he was an angel.  He was “sitting” on the right side of the tomb as the women went in, which is an interesting detail.  He would, in fact, be sitting on a stone bench where a body would have been set.  

“They were utterly amazed.”  The sense is “stupefied” and unable to talk.  The young man in the white robe tells them, “Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified.”  The young man does not identify himself but rather the One whom they sought.  This must have added to their amazement, since except for themselves and those who buried him, very few would have known where the Lord had been buried.  The young man deliberately added “the crucified” in speaking of Jesus, leaving no room for doubt that he had died.  “He has been raised; he is not here. Behold the place where they laid him.”  We should try to hear these words as the women would have: He has been raised?  What does this mean?  Taken away? And by whom was this done?  How can this young man speak so calmly?  Who is he?  Is he one of those who raised him?  Their heads would have rung with many questions.  Did they wonder if those who had lain him in this tomb had taken him from it, since Jesus was not of the family, and buried him elsewhere in the ground?  “Behold the place where they laid him.”  The women would have seen there the linen in which the Body had been wrapped.  But if the Body had been taken away, the linen would hardly have been left behind.  The Body would have been carried out still wrapped.

“He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.”  The women heard this in silence, their minds whirling.  Like the Virgin Mary, hearing the Archangel tell her that she, a Virgin, would conceive the Son of the Most High, they must have wondered, “How can this be?”

Pondering the events of Easter morning through reading the four accounts of these earth-shaking hours (and indeed, St. Matthew tells us of such an earthquake at that time), may we also be stupefied at the power of  God and of his only-begotten Son.