On one occasion I had the opportunity to
talk to a group of young people about the resurrection. I told them that as a Christian I believe in
the physical and real resurrection. I
was surprise to see the disbelief in their faces. Perhaps they still believe in heaven and the
life after death, but they think that physical resurrection is
impossibility. But our Christian creed
affirms the physical resurrection. That is why St. Paul in His apostolic labour
said that the resurrection is a stumbling block among the Jews and was
considered foolishness by the Greeks.
Even in Jesus’ time, Our Lord rebuked and corrected the errors of the
Sadducees, the Jewish sect of which most of the Priestly class belong. The Sadducees do not believe in the
resurrection of the body. But Jesus
rebukes their unbelief and told them that God is addressed as the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the light
of the resurrection of the dead Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not dead but they
are alive in a futuristic sense.
The resurrection of Our Lord also calls
for faith. The Scriptures tell us that
Christ manifested Himself only to His disciples and to a few women who were
witnesses of the resurrection. What the
others have seen was an empty tomb. The missing body of Jesus made commotions
in Jerusalem in so much so that the leaders of the Jews were alarmed and
instructed the soldiers who saw how the angels ministered to our Lord by
rolling the stone, “... Say you, His disciples came by night, and stole him
away when we were asleep.” (Matthew 28:13 Douay-Rheims). I would opine that the reason why only the
disciples and a few women have witnessed to the resurrection of our Lord was
that to make us believe – to make us accept the Will of God in faith. For by faith we are saved. Jesus said, blessed are they who have not
seen but have believed. This was how our
Lord rebuked St. Thomas for his unbelief... “Put in thy finger hither, and see
my hands; and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not
faithless, but believing.” (John 20:27 Douay-Rheims)
The importance of the Resurrection of
the Body as lived by Our Lord and as affirmed by our creed is that, this event
demonstrates to us the completion of the redemptive act. Of all the sting of sin, the last that must
be defeated is death. Because death is the payment and the consequence of
sin. Sin has many side effects, it can
cause sickness, it makes our lives miserable, it puts enmity between us and
God, it leads us to do awful things, and ultimately it results in physical
death. “For the wages of sin is
death. But the grace of God is life
everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 Douay-Rheims). Christ once and for all has demonstrated that
death can be defeated. And if Christ has
defeated death, we too who believe will in the last day rise again. This is our Christian hope, a blessed
hope. This hope is reinforced many times
in our traditions. This is the reason
why we have cemeteries consecrated, this is also the reason why we do not
believe in cremation of the dead because even in our burial practices we want
to express that faith and hope in the resurrection of the body. If our bodies die in such humiliation Christ
will give us a glorious body.
Our faith in the resurrection completes
the theology of suffering. We do penance
and we endure all sorts of voluntary poverty, persecutions and all sorts of
self-denying activity not for its own sake but because we believe that this
will make us worthy for the resurrection of the dead. St. Paul said: “If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (1 Corinthians 15:19 Douay-Rheims.) That is why the resurrection of the Body is a
cornerstone of our faith. Without it
there is no rational justification for our Christian belief. If the dead do not rise again on the last day
then our religion is a miserable religion.
But this hope of the resurrection impels us to persevere to the
end. For death is our last enemy and
Christ gives us hope of final victory which He has won.
Today as we celebrate this feast of all
feasts, perhaps some us are like Thomas, or the apostles, or perhaps we are
like Mary Magdalene and the holy women who went to the sepulchre. Christ invites us to have an encounter with Him. Are we like Thomas who doubts? Let us put our fingers on the hands of our
Lord and see by faith the cost that it took Him to win back paradise for us. Are we like the disciples full of fear...let
us put our trust in the victorious Lord, are we like the women full of devotion
and trust? Let us persevere in that
attitude of service, for the reward is at hand.
Let this encounter with the Lord moved
us to be the salt and light of the earth.
To be an Easter people means that we permeate with hope, love and
forgiveness this temporal world corrupted by sin and decay. In our service to others we will only be able
to express our love for God. May this
Easter also help us gain a deeper appreciation of the Eucharist, the summit of
our Christian life and the pledge of immortality. Jesus
said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eats of this bread, he shall live
forever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the
world.” (John 6:51 Douay-Rheims)
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