There’s something about Easter that strikes me in a very graphic way. When Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went to the tomb of Jesus on the morning after his crucifixion, they found the tomb empty. Empty!
That emptiness was, ironically, a fulfillment of a promise. That the Son of God would never leave His people; that Jesus had conquered death; that the Lord was resurrected. That emptiness filled the void in people’s faith.
These days, we easily run empty of so many things. But the emptiness is different, the very opposite of the emptiness of the Lord’s tomb on Easter Sunday. The emptiness of today signifies a vacuum, purposelessness, futility.
On Maundy Thursday morning, a neighbor screamed at her six-year-old boy, threatening the kid that her patience was near empty. The boy, preoccupied in a computer game, stood up at once, obviously knowing what was to come if his mother’s patience would completely run empty. It probably meant harm for him.
Our lawmakers are in the process of legislating divorce in the country. They say that so many couples have run empty of love for each other. And these couples have the right to re-fill their hearts of love elsewhere.
It seems that the human heart has also run empty of perseverance. One would no longer persevere over the betrayal of a spouse, the one being whom he or she had earlier committed to not part with “in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, till death do us part.” The human mind has also run short of memory.
But, thankfully, “empty” has not completely run empty of its positive, redemptive symbolism. It is still possible, in this troubled day and age, to empty ourselves of the negativism, desolation, insecurity, and aimlessness, no matter how pervasive these have become in our time. We can change, no matter how many times we failed trying; we can try again… and not tire trying.
But if we want to cleanse ourselves of the deeply entrenched bad and ugly about us, we shall be ready to do very hard work. We shall be willing to exert at it the kind of effort like we’ve never done before. We shall get rid of the old to give space to the new.
We shall empty ourselves of our bad habits and wicked ways. But it is very hard to quit an addiction that the body has come to like very much. It is not easy to quit alcohol or drugs, otherwise these would not be major social problems today.
It might take some kind of ‘dying’ to be able to live right. We might have to die from our sinfulness to be born anew to godliness. Our old self might have to die away to make way for a new being.
We see how it works in our everyday life. We empty a room in order to reorganize it and give it better order. We rid the house of all litters to keep it clean and efficient.
Empty! That’s what I want to do with myself on this Easter Sunday. Put all my burdens down, and pick up back only what’s truly necessary to carry on my life journey.