There have been many a happy and public announcements throughout history and when Good News reaches us we can feel the excitement right in our very bones, you can imagine or even remember some of the following announcements, “The war is over, the war is over,” or “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” or Habemus Papam – we have a pope. Today, however, we hear the greatest announcement in all of human history, “The Lord is Risen, Alleluia; The Lord is Risen, Alleluia!”
There is something that moves us when hearing Good News, you could imagine what those announcements I mentioned meant to the people who heard them and those who actually announced and shared them. Today, the announcement of Jesus being raised from the dead must have felt unbelievable to Jesus’ disciples. Their excitement and wonder upon first hearing it must have lifted their spirits through the ceiling as we say. You have to remember, these folks – the disciples were confused, even broken in some way, since their Messiah died. They did not understand the full implications of his dying and rising from the dead. And it would still take a little more for everything to sink in.
The question does remain, however, not simply for the apostles and if they truly understood the implications of the Resurrection, but if we understand it. When we hear the greatest announcement of all time, “The Lord is Risen,” what do we understand, what do we believe?
There are three things the Church wants to make clear, 1) Jesus did truly rise; 2) Since he did rise from the dead that means everything has changed and lastly 3) We too will rise!
Back in early December at my father’s wake a friend tried to comfort me in telling me that this was all an illusion. The words were well meant and the intention was good. I wasn’t sure if the person meant, that my father was no longer present in bodily form – which he wasn’t or if they meant all of life (our current being-state) is an illusion. If the person meant that this life itself was an illusion and that reality was or is some spiritual life somewhere out there, the life just beyond us, then I would disagree. I bring this up because it reminded me of my seminary studies on the Resurrection and how some theologians claimed that the Resurrection was simply a spiritual event. We have to be very careful what we place under the cloud of spirituality. There are a number of problems that could arise, we can hide under the umbrella of spirituality or illusion in order to hide from justice, or we can become superior to others, i.e. I am spiritual, I am enlightened and you are not, and finally some reduce everything Jesus did to the spiritual, especially his miracles and Resurrection.
There are theologians who believe that Resurrection was simply a spiritual event. The apostles did not really see Jesus; those stories were simply written to give verbal expression to what happened to the apostles internally- where reality with God exists (the spiritual realm).
I do not want to get too philosophical and theological, however the Resurrection is a key component to our belief as Christians and one that needs to be understood. Allow me to explain. The Church has unwritten rules, just like, let’s say, hockey. Everyone knows you cannot hit the goalie outside of the crease. If you do the other team will police that action themselves and come after you. There is no rule in hockey that says you cannot hit the goalie outside of the crease, you sure can as long as it is a legal hit, and yet an overwhelming majority of players will avoid hitting the goalie outside of the crease, hence the understood unwritten rule. The same goes for the Resurrection, it has never been dogmatically defined and nor should it be, since it is the unwritten rule that an overwhelming majority understand, i.e. that Jesus really rose from the dead, people saw him, ate with him, touched him, etc.
The apostles were not scholars, but they were not dumb. They would have known how to describe an inner conversion experience; they would have known how to verbalize the so called spiritual realm. They wrote the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the Truth . . .
If my friend meant this is all an illusion – this life, then my friend was clearly mistaken just like some theologians who believe in simply a spiritual Resurrection, because Jesus confirms the goodness of this life by dying for it and then rising with a renewed body that was visible, tangible, and knowable, not just in some hazy spiritual realm, but grounded in the real, Easter Sunday. But I will give my friend the benefit of the doubt and believe that they meant that my father’s body was no longer here, though one day that body will be renewed as well. So, remember the unwritten hockey rule, you can’t check the goalie out of the crease just as you can’t believe that the Resurrected Jesus was just an illusion.
By Jesus rising from the dead he also changes everything. It will no longer be the way it was for the apostles nor for anyone after them. They were used to an earthly Jesus, someone who was always around. By his resurrecting he changed many things, one is that he would no longer be around the way he was before as he would soon ascend to his heavenly Father and give us the Holy Spirit to help us feel Jesus’ presence in prayer, to actually be with him and feed on him in the mass, and have fellowship in him through one another. Everything changed, and it had to in order for us to be healed from our original wound. It could not stay the way it was before or else as St. Paul says, “We would still be in our sins.”
The beauty of Jesus’ resurrection is that what he has done we also will do through God’s power. Throughout Scripture, especially 1st Thessalonians and 1st Corinthians St. Paul goes out of his way to remind us that we too will resurrect, be remade and refashioned into immortality. The souls of those who have already died will be reunited with their bodies to be whole again and those of us left alive will be taken into the air in the twinkling of an eye (not the rapture – but the resurrection as it is properly understood) at the sound of the angel’s trumpet.
Can we even begin to imagine the good things the Lord has prepared for those who love him (Romans 8:28)? So, do not let anything trouble your hearts today, for today is precious to the Lord your God, but even more precious to our Lord is we ourselves. He gives us every good gift, even the gift of life. The stone rolled away for Jesus and he came forth from the tomb, but he wasn’t alone, there were so many with him and if you look closely you will that it is was also you and I, not just an illusion, but real, Happy Easter and God bless you.
Fr. John
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