This quarter I am in a class called “A Narrative Approach to Preaching”. For our final project, the teacher asked us to read the resurrection stories in the Gospels and then write our own resurrection story. It could be about anything, but should in some way depict resurrection. I based my story on an experience I had in the Holy Land. So, if you read some of my previous entries you will recognize some of my story. Without further delay, for your Saturday night into Sunday morning reading, here is my “resurrection story”.

You might expect that Jerusalem would be the place where one is sure to have a profound encounter with Jesus. Despite being told “not to create expectations,” I have to admit that this was my hope as I recently headed to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. As we had traveled the Holy Land for the first month of our pilgrimage I had experienced an amazing closeness to the figures of the Old Testament. Abraham, David, Solomon…these figures all seemed so real.

The pilgrimage had been wonderful so far, but one thing was bothering me. I felt a very personal connection with the patriarchs at this point, but I didn’t feel like I had grown any closer to Jesus. It’s not that I hadn’t been looking. I was trying to be patient and not have expectations, but I really was starting to wonder where Jesus was at in all this. Now, it was time to go to Jerusalem. This, I thought, was surely the answer to my problem. Where do you go to encounter the risen Lord? You go to Jerusalem. St. Luke gives us this message very clearly in his Gospel. If you want to experience the presence of the resurrected Jesus, you have to stay in Jerusalem.

So, it was with great excitement that I arrived in the Holy City. We got settled in on the first day and the next day I was off for my encounter with Jesus…and I knew just where to go to find him. With map in hand I anxiously made my way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I had read about this church, so I knew what I expected to find there. Inside this very large church are both Mt. Calvary and the tomb of Jesus, plus a lot of other things as well. That gives you some idea how large it is.

As I entered the church, I soon made my way to what is obviously the central focus of the church, the Holy Sepulcher itself, the tomb of Jesus. Fortunately, there were not that many people there on this morning, so I was able to go into the very tomb to the innermost chamber and see where the body of Jesus had been laid. It was an amazing place to say the least. However, I can’t say that I had the encounter with Jesus that I was looking for. This didn’t particularly bother me at this point as it was just our first day in Jerusalem. I would come back many times, I thought. And so I headed off to see other parts of the Old City.

Over the course of the next month that I was in Jerusalem, I did indeed return to the Holy Sepulcher many times. I prayed on Mt. Calvary. I prayed in the cistern where St. Helen found the true cross. I prayed in the Armenian chapel. I prayed in the Orthodox chapel. I prayed in the chapel of Mary Magdalene. I prayed just about everywhere. Of course, I also prayed in to tomb of Jesus. I had some good prayer, but I just didn’t feel like I had found Jesus yet, at least not in the way I had hoped.

One day, as I was waiting my turn to enter the tomb to pray, I had some time to try to decipher a Greek inscription that I had been noticing over the entrance to the tomb. I know some New Testament Greek, so I was able to kind of make out what was being said. My guess, based on the words I could make out, was that it was a quote from the Gospel about the women going to the tomb on Easter Sunday morning. There were pictures of some women carved next to the inscription so I thought this might be it. I took a picture of the inscription with my camera and determined to translate it more carefully later.

Later that evening I examined the picture I had taken and, armed with my computer full of Greek, sought to translate the inscription. I went to the verse in scripture that I thought was being quoted and, sure enough, there it was. “Why do you seek the living among the dead? The Lord is risen.” It wasn’t an exact quote from the Bible, so it took me a little while to decipher it. That was the second part of the inscription. The first part of the inscription took me a while. I had to consult my professor and I even stopped a Greek looking priest in the hallway to ask his opinion. In the end, it turned out that the first part of the inscription referred to the women who were coming to anoint the body. After about an hour of research and consulting, I went to bed, proud of my translation achievement.

Over the next few weeks I continued to return to the Holy Sepulcher, but still felt like something was missing. I decided that I needed to do something drastic. I decided that I would lock myself in the Holy Sepulcher over night and really immerse myself in prayer. You can arrange to do this with the Franciscans who are in charge of the church, so I decided it was time. That Saturday evening, I came to the Holy Sepulcher armed with my Bible and Rosary and I was ready for a fruitful vigil of prayer.

I decided that I would break up my vigil into two sections. I would begin on Mt. Calvary, and then move to the tomb. As the doors were locked, an unusual but most welcome quiet began to engulf this large building. It was quite a contrast to the noisy comings and goings of the daytime and I loved it. In this peace and darkness I began my climb to the summit of Calvary. I spent hours up there. I prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary and read the accounts of the crucifixion in the Gospels. It was a wonderful time of meditation and I felt very close to Jesus in his passion. After many hours of fruitful prayer, it was time to move to the tomb.

As I entered the tomb, it was warm with the many lamps that were burning. I was so thankful to finally be able to have some time all alone by myself in the tomb. I noticed that there were many more Greek inscriptions written on the walls. My Greek is not all that good and, since it took me a couple hours to translate the line over the door previously, I was not even going to attempt to do any translating this night. As I stood there in the tomb I tried to meditate on the various pictures that were there. I tried to arouse my emotions by focusing on the fact that the body of Jesus had once been laid out on the slab of stone right in front of me. Still, I felt like nothing was happening. I had come to the tomb to find Jesus, and I still didn’t feel like I had really had a deep encounter yet.

Frustrated and worn out by the sleepless hours of my vigil I fell to my knees in the tomb and rested my hands and head on the slab where the body of Jesus once rested. I prayed with all the more fervor that I could have a real experience of closeness with Jesus. In the middle of my prayer something caught my eye. From my lower vantage point kneeling over the burial place I noticed a small inscription on the bottom of a painting. Unlike all the other inscriptions that were in Greek, this one was in Latin. My Latin is better than my Greek, so I was easily able to translate it. It said very simply, “He is not here. He is risen. See the place where they laid him.”

“He is not here.” That phrase went again and again through my mind. Then the quote from above the door sprang back into my memory. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” All of the sudden the plain truth right in front of me hit me in a way it hadn’t on previous visits. This tomb was empty! He is not here! He is risen! This was not just the place where the body of Jesus was once laid to rest; this was the very site where the resurrection took place. I realized then that, just like the first disciples, I too had come to the tomb looking for Jesus and found the tomb empty. I was now a witness to the empty tomb just like the disciples that came on the first Easter and saw exactly what I saw. He is not here, I read again…but I knew I had found him at last.

My quiet prayers were soon disturbed by a commotion at the main door. The security guard had returned to unlock the church. With a loud screech the huge doors flung open to allow the celebration of Sunday Mass to begin. It was now very early in the morning on the first day of the week and I walked out of the dark church full of the presence of the risen lord. My faith had been renewed and I couldn’t wait to tell all my classmates about my encounter with Jesus at the empty tomb.