Still at the Tomb: A Reflection for Easter Monday

by Lori Wilson

Easter has come and gone — and maybe you, like me, are quietly wondering why joy hasn't quite arrived yet.

The sunrise service was beautiful. The music swelled. The lilies were luminous. Families gathered, children hunted eggs, and the liturgy proclaimed what we believe with our whole hearts: He is risen. And yet — here I am, the morning after, still sitting somewhere close to the empty tomb. Not in despair. Just... waiting.

I don't think I'm alone in this.

In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the Fourth Week invites us into the joy of the Resurrection. But Ignatius is careful about something: joy in this movement of the retreat is not manufactured. It is received. We don't conjure it. We open ourselves to it — and then we wait.

Mary Magdalene knew this waiting. Even after the stone was rolled away, even after the angels spoke, she stood weeping outside the tomb (John 20:11). The resurrection had already happened. But her heart hadn't caught up yet. She wasn't failing the moment. She was living it honestly.

That image has held me for years.

We live in a culture that wants feelings to arrive on schedule — joy by Easter Sunday, gratitude by Thanksgiving, peace by Christmas Eve. But the soul doesn't keep a calendar. And I've learned, slowly, to stop fighting that.

So what do I do with this waiting?

I allow it.

I sit with what is actually present in me — the quiet, the flatness, the subtle ache — and I invite God into that space. Not to fix it or rush it. But to be in it with me. I ask to be shown newness, even if I can't feel it yet. I ask to be shown where new life might be quietly taking root, even beneath ground I cannot see.

Just because the calendar turns doesn't mean my emotions are obligated to follow. And there is something deeply honest — even holy — about acknowledging that.

Over the years, I have come to trust this. Easter joy, for me, rarely arrives all at once in a single morning. More often it comes quietly, in the days that follow — in a conversation, in the light through a window, in a moment of unexpected gratitude. Not because I chased it, but because I made room for it.

Mary stayed at the tomb. And because she stayed, she was the first to hear her name spoken by the Risen Christ.

Maybe the waiting isn't a detour from resurrection. Maybe it's part of it.

For Your Reflection

• Where are you today — at the celebration, still at the tomb, or somewhere in between? Can you allow yourself to be exactly where you are?

• Is there something in this Easter season that you were hoping to feel but haven't yet? What would it mean to bring that honestly to God?

• Where might new life be quietly taking root in you, even if you can't quite see it yet?

A Closing Prayer

Risen God, I come to you not always with joy, but with honesty. Meet me here — at the tomb, in the waiting, in the quiet that follows celebration. I don't ask you to rush my heart. I ask only that you be present to it. Show me where new life is already at work in me, even in the places I cannot yet see. I trust the grace already unfolding. Amen.