He Saw and Believed

Having been a jogger in my earlier years, I found the narrative of St. John’s and St. Peter’s sprint to the tomb of interest. John, who in modesty does not name himself here, tells us that he arrived at the tomb before Peter, but waited and did not go in. Some secondary considerations arise here. It is well known that St. John was quite young, perhaps even a teenager at the time of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection, so his youth would have gotten him to the tomb more swiftly. Secondly, Peter, always the impetuous one, does not hesitate to enter the tomb as did John, seeking verification of Magdalene’s claim before anything els. he makes a mad dash inside.

 

But, as I said, these considerations are at most secondary, interesting in themselves, but not the central message unfolding for us in the telling by St. John. There is a symbolic meaning that might miss our perception. It lies in what the two Apostles signify for the nascent Church. St. Peter signifies the structure and authority of the Church; St. Jon signifies the love for Christ which defines discipleship.

 

Love defers to authority as John defers to Peter. The Lord had commissioned both of these elements in the formation of the Apostles, as He gave Peter the Keys to the Kingdom and taught us in John’s Letters to love one another. Yet the third figure, that of St. Mary Magdalene enters into the configuration. Where she saw the empty tomb and thought that the Lord’s body have merely been removed, we are told that John “saw and believed.”

 

Magdalene’s love for Christ takes her only so far: she needs to see the Risen Christ to come to an understanding of the Resurrection (not unlike St. Thomas). Yet John, whose love for Christ is pure, chaste and all-encompassing, is able to put love and knowledge of the Lord together to come to an immediate recognition, in faith, of the Resurrection.

 

We are not told of St. Peter’s reaction here; we must wait until later in the story. But while love bows to authority, it is love that is first to recognize the deeper mysteries of faith. No doubt all three characters were breathless, not just from their running, but in their seeing, believing and proclaiming the Resurrection while not yet having met the Risen Christ. If we were to work at deepening our love for Christ, particularly in the Eucharist, laying our head upon His breast as did the young St. John at the Last Supper, in a post-Communion prayer of thanksgiving, our insight into the faith could could come to us more quickly and more profoundly. This, then might stir our hearts as we hear the Resurrection story each Easter, and leave us breathless.