At my house, when the cupboards are empty it’s a bad thing. It doesn’t take long before the children start asking when I am going to do the next food shop. When my car flashes up with the orange empty sign, it’s a bad thing. When my phone battery has 1% and as I’m fumbling for the charging lead the battery dies, it’s a bad thing.
In lots of ways the emptiness we encounter in life is a negative and resourceless space. Emptiness speaks of lack, depletion, a void, or something lost and defeated.
For a moment there at the tomb, this version of emptiness grips the hearts of Mary and Jesus’ disciples. From their perspective, their vantage point, it was a tragic disappointment. All they could see, touch, and understand was attached to how they understood the concept of emptiness. I think I would have been the same.
The thought that ‘empty’ could possibly mean the complete opposite wouldn’t have been in my mind and it wasn’t for them, even though Jesus had hinted at this.
As Mary meets Jesus here, it all changes.
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
John 20:11-16
The emptiness in her heart at this moment must have evaporated into totally mind-numbing joy. The tomb of Jesus is the contrast to all of that initial understanding of emptiness. It now speaks of victory and triumph, completion, and fullness.
We are invited into this moment. We don’t stand by the tomb today, but the impact of it, the emptiness of it and the triumphant Jesus that it can’t hold, does connect with us today. He has Risen, and with him all our hope is placed.
Our emptiness, with all its weight and baggage, is like that tomb: transformed, the old man has gone, the new has come.
