We begin at the tomb—don’t we always? Early in the morning, like Mary Magdalene, or hiding behind closed doors like Thomas. We want proof. A body. Something cold and sealed and heavy with certainty. We want to lay hands on what’s no longer alive because, frankly, it’s easier to believe in death than in resurrection.
The apostles were not immune to this. Resurrection wasn’t their assumption; it was an interruption. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2). Their grief was not just about loss—it was about disorientation. This was not the story they had planned. And so they searched for the last known location of Jesus, as though the living God could be GPS-tracked by grief. As though the author of life would be courteous enough to remain buried.
We too are searching for dead things. Not just bodies, but certainty. Closure. Finality. We cling to what is fixed because resurrection—new life, transformation, hope—is unpredictable. It demands faith, not evidence. It’s a risk. Easier to stay in the dark with the smell of burial linens than to step into light that shatters everything we thought we knew.
We prefer a God we can embalm with doctrines, not one who breathes through locked doors. A Christ we can admire as martyr, not one who dares to call us out of the tomb, too. Often we define by the past, instead of by potential. We spiritualize despair and call it realism.
But here’s the twist: it is precisely when we are searching for a corpse that Christ is standing behind us, very much alive, asking, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)
The quest for the dead body is our way of controlling the narrative. Of holding on to pain because it makes sense. The resurrection is not sensible. It is confounding. And so our eyes remain closed—not by divine mystery, but by our own refusal to open them to joy.
And yet—Christ waits.
In a Catholic theological framework, absence is never merely a void—it becomes a provocative site of presence, of invitation, of encounter. The empty tomb on Easter morning is not a symbol of abandonment but the first whisper of resurrection. Similarly, in the classroom, the absence of a student, a voice, a perspective, should not be reduced to silence or non-participation. Instead, it calls the educator into a deeper awareness of Imago Dei—to ask not what is missing, but who is being missed. Absence, when seen through a lens of faith, becomes sacramental: a sign pointing beyond itself to the relational nature of learning, and the moral imperative to reach out. In this way, absence becomes not a space of lack, but a summons to presence—a call to see with the eyes of compassion, and to respond not with data but with dignity.
Jesus is present. He breaks bread. He calls our name. He comes through closed doors, wounds still visible, and says Peace.
There is nothing wrong with needing to verify. But maybe we’ve forgotten that faith is not about finding the right tomb but hearing the voice that says “Do not cling to me. I am going ahead of you.” We need to stop defining ourselves by what is missing.
So if you’re standing at a sealed place, waiting for the past to confirm your present, remember: the body you’re looking for isn’t there.
He is not among the dead. He never was.
He is risen. And He is always going ahead of us. Even when we’d rather He stayed put.
The Female Theologian 