The Gospels do not describe the chronicle of Christ's Resurrection, but the experience of the Risen One in the early church.

All the evangelists hint at the fact that the fulfilment of law and mass (Sabbath) delays both the unrepeatable comprehension and the awareness of the power of Life unleashed by the Person, the Word, the whole story and proposal of Jesus.

Mk and especially Mt reiterate the appointment of "Galilee": theological and existential territory opposed to observant Judea.

Today, we would perhaps speak of the 'spirit of the origins' - the primordial experience of the Lord - or of 'summary daily life'; that is, of an 'outgoing' assembly

Exodus towards fragmented peripheries, distinct from an identified but inert and unimaginative Centre, predisposed only to judgement [which does not respect what deeply belongs to the woman and man of all times].

Mt specifies that it is the event of "the Mount": we experience the Living One in the embodiment of the Beatitudes, the Spirit of Love resigned but vital.

Reversal that sometimes throws up idols to force us to encounter them, in the dignity of our own imprint - carried within the oneness, in the spirit of family, for eternity.

Lk recommends that we do not seek the Friend (our departure, guide, brio and silent knowledge) among the "dead" who encumber us.

To the disciples of Emmaus, it is revealed in an overturned capacity for interpretation of the inglorious events, and in an ardent understanding of the Scriptures.

In particular, it manifests itself in the 'breaking of life': in the reciprocity of receiving and being nourished, without inhibiting character and exceptional choices.

Jn insists on turning our gaze planted on the grave. In the grave of a tomb there is nothing but a Birth.

The fourth Gospel gives the essential criterion for recognising the manifestation of the living Jesus: his Peace.

Not the kind of Pax Romana [the empire was at peace] but Shalôm-fullness. Today we would say: complete joy; total, multifaceted fulfilment.

Code for understanding the Gospels is the flourishing and Happiness of people as they are.

Absolute criterion - true golden age.

Therefore, the missionary mandate that the Lord issues to us does not proclaim a different doctrine, from "others".

It is the invitation to be fully oneself in Him, and thus be able to embody the same Tenderness of the Father - vast, diverse, inclusive.

What has changed for us with the Resurrection? Is there evidence that he lives? Why does it not appear? What would be the signs? And the great benefits?

O. Wilde stated: 'When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.

Of these kinds of requests, we must get rid.

Prayers stranded by common expectations or intentions are sometimes like the 'women' of the Gospels on Easter morning.

Still planted on funeral laments, they seek Life in the wrong places: places that are unhealthy, because they are tied to accepted ideas [of the past or conformist] and corpses.

There is a different, characterising track, for each one, dragging from within, and growing; for a decisive, non-external summit.

Victory in life means: stop tying ourselves to idolatries that are inactive but fallback.

Let us make the innate call of the essence fly, which we do not yet see but which pulses ardently, unquenchable.

It is not the conventional, conditioned, conforming, tone-deaf and 'as-is' but one-sided, shoddy purpose - that gives us joy.

It captures unseen energy, 'by name'. Which wants to sprout from the dark and opposite sides.

Birth and death are experiences of many times: why? For uninterrupted Genesis, and other possibilities.

For the sake of a healthy growth towards humanising realisation, in generosity and baptismal attitude, the stranded soul must be set free.

Our unusualness feels lost in the vicious circles of normal expectations.

And what we had imagined as inexorably the same, therefore vain and stagnant - infuses the astonishment of surprises that transcend expectations and intentions.

By eliminating conventional and other people's intentions in favour of personal Dreams that exaggerate, we will know the atypicality of God who leaps from the rubble and chaos of patterns.

Missionaries know this: it is not from Judea that certainty comes, but from Galilee, that is, from uncertainty. Their security lies in insecurity.

It is darkness that brings rebirth.

Laying aside what we previously interpreted with a sense of permanence, we marvel at the treasures that lie behind the shaky sides.

And of the independent Life that snaps amidst signs of death.

Perhaps more than a few are still surprised by the 'empty tomb': that is, a Risen Jesus only 'personal', lived in love, in the free normal, in the gift of self that conquers death. But without any 'mausoleum'.Beloved Disciple and Peter

Not to dim the personal encounter

(Jn 20:2-8)

"Now the two ran together, and the other disciple ran on ahead of Peter and came first to the tomb, and bending down he saw the linen cloths folded apart; nevertheless he did not enter" (Jn 20:4-5).

In the Fourth Gospel, the beloved disciple is an individual and ecclesial figure: of each of us, at the foot of the Cross together with the Mother - believing, sensitive and faithful Israel.

In addition, the beloved disciple himself is a broader, collective icon: of the new community that is born around Jesus.

It is precisely the Church that arises; not on the basis of a planned succession, but by full and spontaneous adherence, which is unpredictable.

At the end of the first century, the Gospel of John acquires its fourth-fifth and final draft, in a climate of growing conflict between the old institution [now reduced to a synagogue, without a Temple] and the new, adoring assembly of the sons.

Other tensions arise between the Johannine school - frankly prophetic - and the apostolic school, which we would define as Petrine charism, i.e. governmental.  A more diplomatic reality, and attenuated in its cues [with frictions evident throughout the redaction of Jn, as well as in the text we are commenting on].

In Asia Minor, the Lord's friends, Hellenists less bound by custom, intended to contrast the uncertain and compromising attitude of the Judaizers.

Many of the believers in the Johannine churches were thinking of abandoning the synagogue and the First Testament, which were holding them back.

Alternatively, they wished to embrace the New exclusively, through personal Faith in the living Christ, without uncertainty.

The fourth Gospel attempts to balance the extremist positions.

"Son" and Mother - that is, the people of the Old Covenant [in Hebrew "Israèl" is feminine] - must remain united (Jn 19:26-27).

In short, Faith and works of law go hand in hand.

Faith is a progressive relationship that is ignited in a quest filled with tension and passion ["running"].

It conveys progressive perceptions, which give access to a new world ['entering'], where we see things we do not know.

This had already been partly the dismayed reaction of Mary Magdalene, who in Jn 19:26-27 rushes alone to the tomb - not accompanied by other "women" as the synoptics narrate.

A dismay that, however, leads to the Announcement: the tomb (the condition of the Sheôl, a ravine of darkness) was no longer in the condition in which it had been left after Christ's burial.

And indeed, that sheet "wrapped [carefully] apart" says that he will never need any shroud. Death no longer has power over Him.

Thus, although the young man is faster than the veteran and arrives first to see the signs of the truth and the new world, he gives way.

Like a prophet who grasps everything beforehand, the outspoken disciple and the genuine community wait for the delayed ones to come to the same experience, to the identical acumen of things; to believing in the mysterious process that brings gain in loss and life from death.

The lover's eye immediately perceives; it has the acute, intimate gaze that grasps and makes its own the Newness of the Risen One.

Before mere admirers, who await results and anticipate favours before getting involved, immediately the empathetic and truthful brother grasps Life amidst signs of death.

As if by the relationship of Faith that animates us, in the attention of events, we are already introduced into a reality that communicates new senses. And the distinguishing-hearing of the heart.

A Listening that sharpens the eye - projecting the Announcement.

A new People thus arises, who "sees within", who perceives the Infinite appearing in finiteness, and complete life revealing itself in the fragility of the (even obscure) event.

Says the Tao Tê Ching [LII]: "He who increases his feats, for all his life has no escape. Enlightenment is seeing the small; strength is sticking to softness'.

Master Ho-shang Kung comments: "Only the clear understanding of small things appears as illumination. He who abides in weakness, every day becomes great and strong'.

Thus Master Wang Pi: "The meritorious work of those who govern does not lie in great things: seeing great things is not enlightenment; seeing small things is enlightenment. To stick to strength is not strength'.

For the liner of the institutional and governmental Church, the motorboat of the enthusiast is impregnable; at best, it tails it. Or at least, he should not lose sight of it.

In his sensitivity, the Beloved Disciple - springing from the Heart of the Pierced One and carrying the Tradition to the summit - senses the living Lord long before the one being commemorated.

He is enlightened by it, and in his experience he instantly realises the power of Life over all bindings.

A divine, enlightening condition, unfolded in history.But much patience will have to be exercised, so that amidst a thousand delays and backtracks that make the children stagnate, at least here and there we do not vaporise the charisma of the outriders and the personal encounter.

Those who play in advance and trigger the involvement of the heart to a new level, map out the present and the future for the entire field of those responsible who - uncertain or willingly - still linger.