28 March 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” Matthew 28:6
Christ is risen! Very early on the first day of the week, the women go to the tomb, and an angel says: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” Then Jesus himself meets them: “Greetings!” They take hold of his feet and worship him. The One who was dead is alive for ever.
In John's Gospel Mary Magdalene runs to Peter and the beloved disciple; they run to the tomb and find the linen cloths lying there. The other disciple “saw and believed”. The empty tomb is not proof by itself, but it is the first sign; faith is born when we see with the heart that God has kept his word.
The Old Testament readings have prepared us. Daniel is brought up alive from the lions' den, because God shut the lions' mouths (Daniel 6:22). Moses sets up the tabernacle, and God's glory fills it. Isaiah announces: “Peace, peace, to the far and the near.” In the risen Christ the glory of God dwells among us for ever, and his first word to the disciples will be: “Peace be with you.”
St Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.” St Paul hands on the heart of the Gospel: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures… he was buried… he was raised on the third day.” Easter is not a beautiful story; it is the event on which everything stands. Because Christ is risen, sin is forgiven, death is defeated, and our own bodies will rise. Let us live as Easter people.
Theme: “He is not here; he has been raised.”
Christ is risen! This is the feast of feasts. Everything in our faith depends on it: if Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile; but Christ has been raised. Today we celebrate the victory over death, the witness of the empty tomb, and our mission to proclaim it.
“He will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces.” Isaiah 25:8
“But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.” Acts 2:24
Apply: Bring your grief to the Risen Lord and let him wipe away your tears.
“Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” Daniel 6:23
“Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.” John 20:8
Apply: Profess the Creed today with special faith: “On the third day he rose again.”
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.” Isaiah 60:1
“Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”” Matthew 28:10
Apply: Greet your family and neighbours today with “Christ is risen!” and share the joy with someone who is sad or alone.
The tomb is empty, death is defeated, and the Lord is alive.
Let us live as Easter people: without fear, full of hope, witnesses of the Risen One.
Take-home resolution: During the fifty days of Easter, greet others with “Christ is risen” and pray the Glory Be with special joy.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Dear brothers and sisters, very early this morning the women went to the tomb with spices, expecting to anoint a dead body. Instead they found an angel who said: “Do not be afraid. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.”
As he said. On the road to Jerusalem Jesus had told his disciples three times that he would suffer, die and rise on the third day. They did not understand. Today God has kept his word. And Jesus himself meets the women: “Greetings!” They hold his feet and worship him. Peter and John run to the tomb; the beloved disciple “saw and believed”.
St Paul gives us the heart of the Gospel: “Christ died for our sins, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day.” Because Christ is risen, our sins can be forgiven; because Christ is risen, death is not the end; because Christ is risen, the graves of our loved ones are not the last word. Daniel came out of the lions' den at dawn; Christ came out of the tomb, and he will bring us out too.
St Peter said: “God raised this Jesus, and we are all witnesses.” Now we are the witnesses. Let us live as Easter people: joyful, forgiving, hopeful. Bring this joy to someone who is sad this week. Christ is risen! He is truly risen! Amen.
Children, Christ is risen! Say it with me: He is risen indeed!
On Sunday morning the women went to Jesus' tomb and found it empty. An angel said: “He is not here, he is risen!” Then Jesus himself came to meet them. They were so happy!
Jesus is alive for ever, and he is with us. Today tell everyone at home: “Jesus is alive!” Let's shout: “Alleluia!”
Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, you have trampled down death by death and given life to those in the tombs. Fill us with Easter joy and peace, make us witnesses of your Resurrection, and raise us with you on the last day. Christ is risen! He is truly risen! Amen.
Qyomtho is the Syriac word for resurrection, and today every reading of the Church's rich table leans toward it. The Evening Gospel (Matthew 28:1–10) gives the angel's word, “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” Four Old Testament lessons follow. Exodus 40:17–23 sets up the tabernacle on the first day of the first month. Sirach 30:21–25 speaks of the joyful heart. Daniel 6:18–24 brings a man up alive from a sealed pit at daybreak. Isaiah 57:14–21 proclaims, “Peace, peace, to the far and the near.” Then in Acts 2:29–36 Peter says, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”
We study three of these closely. Daniel is the lesson nearest to the Gospel, with its stone, its seal and its dawn. Paul gives the oldest written list we have of the Lord's appearances. John takes us to the empty tomb itself, with two men running and linen lying where it had been left. The line runs from a sealed pit to an open tomb, and its key words are daybreak, witness and saw and believed.
Setting.
The book of Daniel sets this story in Babylon under “Darius the Mede” (5:31), and chapter 6 belongs to the part of the book written in Aramaic (2:4b–7:28). Many scholars think the book reached its final form in the persecution under Antiochus IV, around 167–164 BC, using older tales of faithful Jews at a foreign court. Whatever its date, its purpose is plain: to strengthen people who must choose between their God and the power of the state.
Daniel's offence was prayer. He went on praying three times a day, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, despite the decree against it (6:10). The king, who respected him, was caught by his own unchangeable law. The verse just before our reading says, “A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet” (6:17).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no food was brought to him,” (6:18)
A note on the text. The Aramaic word rendered “food” occurs only here, and its meaning is uncertain. Translators have guessed at food, entertainment or music. The Malayalam POC says that he gave up all his diversions. Either way, the point is the same: the king cannot rest.
“Then, at break of day, the king got up and hurried to the den of lions.” (6:19)
The hurrying at daybreak toward a sealed place is a detail that speaks to us on this morning, when the women come to the tomb and the disciples run.
“O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?” (6:20)
A pagan king asks the true Easter question: is this God able?
“My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me,” (6:22)
Hebrews remembers those who by faith “shut the mouths of lions” (Hebrews 11:33). The credit here goes to God, not to Daniel's courage.
“So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” (6:23)
The words “taken up” help us to hear this lesson today. The difference must also be kept in view: Daniel was kept from death, whereas Christ truly died and passed through death to a life that does not end.
How the Church reads it.
The Church reads the Old Testament in the light of Christ, and the Catechism calls this typology, while warning that it must not make us forget the Old Testament's own value as Revelation (CCC 128–129). Daniel between the lions is one of the most common pictures in the earliest Christian art, including the catacombs, as a sign of deliverance from death. Aphrahat, the Persian Sage, one of the earliest Syriac Fathers, sets Daniel beside Jesus: the one went down into the lions' pit and came up, and the other went down into the deep pit of Sheol and came up, and death had no dominion over him (Demonstrations 21, in substance). So from very early the Syriac Church was reading this pit with the Lord's tomb in mind.
Setting.
Paul writes from Ephesus (16:8), in the mid-50s, to a lively and divided Church he had founded. Some there were saying “there is no resurrection of the dead” (15:12). Rather than begin with an argument, he reminds them of what they first received. The Catechism notes that this was written about AD 56, and that Paul is speaking of the living tradition he had himself received after his conversion (CCC 639).
Many scholars think that verses 3–5 are a formula older than the letter, one Paul was given and is now passing on. He had gone up to Jerusalem “to visit Cephas” within a few years of his conversion (Galatians 1:18). This carries us very close to the events themselves.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,” (15:3–4)
Here is the Creed in seed. “In accordance with the scriptures” means that these events fulfil God's long purpose. Paul names no text; Isaiah 53 and Hosea 6:2 are often proposed. The burial, mentioned so plainly, shows a real death and a real body.
“and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” (15:5)
Cephas is the Aramaic form of Peter's name. Luke too preserves the early cry, “he has appeared to Simon!” (Luke 24:34). “The twelve” is a title for the group, even though Judas was gone.
“Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive,” (15:6)
“Still alive”: Paul is, in effect, saying that the witnesses can be asked. The Resurrection is presented as something that happened, with people who can speak of it.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” (15:10)
The persecutor became an apostle. Paul says that he worked harder than any of them, then at once corrects himself: “though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Here human labour and God's grace are not rivals.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls the Resurrection “the crowning truth of our faith” and treats this passage as its earliest testimony (CCC 638–639). It teaches that the Resurrection is a real, historical event with manifestations that can be verified, and also a mystery that passes beyond history (CCC 639, 647). The Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople, in its Greek text, takes its words from this passage: “on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.” Paul goes on to say bluntly that if Christ has not been raised, “your faith has been in vain” (15:14). The Church has never softened that. The “James” of verse 7 is the one Paul calls “the Lord's brother” (Galatians 1:19), and the Church understands “brother” here in the wider biblical sense of a close relation (CCC 500).
Setting.
John has told of the burial in a garden near the place of crucifixion, with linen wrappings and a great weight of spices (19:39–42). Now it is the first day of the week, and “still dark”. In this Gospel the darkness is more than the time of day; it is the state of the world before the light is recognized.
Mary Magdalene comes alone in John's telling, though her “we do not know” in verse 2 may hint at other women, as in the other Gospels. She draws the natural conclusion: someone has moved the body. No one in this passage expects a resurrection. That is itself part of its witness.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.” (20:1)
The first day: the day of creation's beginning, and from now on the Lord's Day. As preachers have often said, the stone was moved so that witnesses could go in, not so that he could come out.
“The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.” (20:4)
Christian tradition identifies this disciple with John, though the Gospel keeps him unnamed. A common reading among preachers is that love runs fastest. Yet he waits, and Peter is the first to enter. Love and office in the Church do not compete.
“and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” (20:7)
St John Chrysostom reasons that those who steal a body do not first take time to strip it and fold the cloths (in substance). The detail has the feel of an eyewitness who remembered exactly what he saw.
“Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;” (20:8)
He has not yet seen the risen Lord. He sees an absence with a certain shape to it, and he believes. This is the first Easter faith in John's Gospel, and it stands close to the blessing still to come: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (20:29).
“for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” (20:9)
Faith comes first here and understanding later. That is why the Lord will open the Scriptures to his disciples, and why the Church reads so many of them today.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the empty tomb is not by itself a direct proof, since the absence of Christ's body could be explained otherwise, but that it is still an essential sign and the first step toward recognizing the Resurrection. It adds that the beloved disciple's “he saw and believed” suggests he realized that the absence of the body could not be of human doing, and that Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life as Lazarus had (CCC 640). It also notes that Mary Magdalene and the holy women were the first to meet the risen Lord and thus became the first messengers of the Resurrection to the apostles themselves (CCC 641). St Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on John, calls her “apostle of the apostles”.
Paul lists those who saw the risen Lord. Why does he not mention the women?
Paul does not explain this. He is handing on a short summary, and it does not say that its list is complete. Many scholars think that it records those whose testimony counted officially in the public preaching of the Church. The Gospels do not leave the women out: all four place them first at the tomb, and the Catechism says plainly that they were the first messengers of the Resurrection (CCC 641). The two accounts complement one another.
What did the beloved disciple believe, if he did not yet understand the Scripture?
St Augustine took the words narrowly: he believed what Mary had said, that the body was gone (in substance). Most readers, ancient and modern, and the Catechism too (CCC 640), understand a real beginning of faith in the Resurrection. The note in verse 9 is then saying that this faith did not come from a clear grasp of the prophecies, which came only later. It came from what he saw at the tomb.
The reading from Daniel ends with whole families thrown to the lions. How should we hear that?
The verse describes the decision of a king of that time, in a world in which whole families shared a man's punishment. The text does not say that God commanded it. Vatican II teaches that the Old Testament contains “some things which are incomplete and temporary” (Dei Verbum 15), and that we must pay attention to literary forms (Dei Verbum 12). The story's lesson is that evil plots fall back on those who make them. Christ, the one who was raised, prayed on the Cross for those who crucified him (Luke 23:34), and no Christian can take this verse as a pattern.
Our tradition keeps the great joy of Qyomtho, and the Church now enters the season that takes its name. This first week is Hevoro week, “white” week. White is the colour of Easter joy and of the Baptism we recalled yesterday, since the white garment says that the baptized person has put on Christ (CCC 1243). Each Holy Qurbono in the Antiochene tradition carries this morning within it: after the words of institution the people answer, in substance, “We remember your death, O Lord; we confess your resurrection; and we await your second coming.” The Catechism calls Easter the “feast of feasts” (CCC 1169). A sermon that bears the name of St John Chrysostom, priest of Antioch before he was bishop of Constantinople, cries out on this day that Christ is risen and life reigns (in substance). In this spirit Christians greet one another this morning: Christ is risen.