Reflection - What Next?.....

The Three Maries at the Sepulchre, 1862, Eugène Delacroix

A reflection given at Evensong at St Stephen’s Rochester Row on Sunday 16th April 2023 (Year A, Easter 2) based on Mark 15.46-16.8.

Four years ago today Europe was left dumbstruck as it awoke to pictures of a smouldering Notre Dame. After a night described by one fire-service chaplain as hell on earth - when endless waterfalls of flames engulfed the ancient beams of the roof - the next morning, the shell of the cathedral stood empty. 

Since Victor Hugo’s popular romantic novel - known in English as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” - the cathedral of Our Lady had become a living and breathing part of the City. Hugo’s passionate description of the building was then a clarion call for its restoration and repair. In the week after the fire, sales of the text again hit record levels as the City mourned - wondering what the next chapter would bring? 

 

Crowds flocked to the scene and stood gawping. Their faces reflecting the great void into which they stared.

 

The religious saw the emptiness of a cathedral without the sacrament, without worship. The non-religious saw the emptiness of the human endeavor - the efforts of the craftsmen who had constructed and repaired it - reduced to dust.  

 

The feeling of emptiness can prompt questions of meaning and purpose. 

 

How? 

Why? 

What next? 

 

 

There’s a sort of ‘what next’ feeling to the many traditions associated with this evening, which marks the end of the Octave of Easter. A period that began when we stood facing the Easter fire.

 

St Augustine describes a custom in the early church whereby on this night neophytes - those who had been newly baptized at Easter (and who would have attended church each day since) removed their white baptismal garments and returned to sit amongst the congregation in civvies. This is Low Sunday. The party’s over. Time to come back down to earth.

 

In other churches - and by a curious co-incidence given our remembrance of the anniversary of the Notre-Dame fire - this day is known as Quasimodo Sunday - from the Latin text of the antiphon “quasi modo geniti infantes,” taken from a line in the first letter of Peter:

 

"Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation”.

 

In Victor Hugo’s novel, the baby found on the steps of Notre Dame is given the name Quasimodo not only to commemorate the fact that he was found on this day - but also to mark how incomplete the one eyed, malformed child appeared to be. Like a work in progress. As the antiphon would have it - like all of us. 

 

So what next? 

 

What next for us - now the Prosecco is flat, the Easter bonnets are back in their box and we’re on the low side of a chocolate-egg high?

 

What next for us - quasi modo geniti infantes - like newborn children of God longing for pure spiritual milk?

 

What next for us - partially formed works in progress? One eye having glimpsed the glory of the heavenly kingdom, the other blinded to it by the bright lights of this world?

 

What next for us - transported by the gospel back to the empty tomb a week after the fires of the Easter vigil have been extinguished?

 

The feeling of emptiness can prompt questions of meaning and purpose. 

 

How?

Why?

What next?

Questions which must have gone through the minds of the three women as they approached the tomb of Jesus that morning after the sabbath, carrying spices to anoint his dead body - when they saw the tombstone had been rolled away. Perhaps their mouths mimicked the gaping nought in the rock? 

 

 

Said by some to have been the original ending to his gospel, in this cliffhanger passage St Mark leaves us gawping in much the same way. 

 

After encountering the angel in the tomb and fleeing - dumbstruck - in terror and amazement, did the three women go to the disciples as they had been instructed? Did they see Jesus again in Galilee?

 

We are left as perplexed as them. 

 

Staring into the empty tomb asking questions.

 

In this gospel, the resurrection seems more of a challenge than a comfort. 

 

A challenge to go and meet Jesus in Galilee - which for us means returning to the start of the gospel - to walk with him again and again. A challenge to change, to rebuild - to keep growing in his likeness - and discovering more about ourselves and each other in the process. Just as specialists analysing the ashes from the Notre Dame fire are finding out new information about those who built it - using this information to help them restore the cathedral. 

 

A challenge to change how we see the world - making judgements not on outward appearances as in Victor Hugo’s novel - but on the potential and possibility of the grace of God at work in us all. 

 

Today, on Quasimodo Sunday, a week after the Easter fire has been extinguished, we are back in the garden with the three women at the empty tomb.

To remind us of our continuing challenge to learn to see its fullness. 

 

To see in it the answers to all our questions.

A faith and hope and love built on solid foundations.

On rock.

 

But a rock with an empty tomb in it. 

 

An empty tomb full of possibility.  

From which Jesus Christ, our Saviour, has risen.

Image : The Three Maries at the Sepulchre, 1862, Eugène Delacroix