Christ Is Risen!

As a freshman in college, I was in a Great Books program. In the lounges of the dorms we lived in, we’d have lectures and discussions on figures like Plato, Augustine, and Karl Marx. Occasionally, they would invite a guest from the university for lunch and conversation. One day, I saw that the Dean of the Office of Religious Life was coming over. As one of the few practicing religious students, I jumped at the opportunity to attend.

I’ll never forget the question my friend Paul asked after we finished our food. He said, “I can understand how you could revere Jesus as a teacher and prophet. But do you believe in the miracles described in the Gospel? Do you believe that Jesus really rose from the dead?”

I loved the question. It was so direct! My mind was filled with ways I would begin to answer. But I was also thrilled that the question wasn’t for me. I felt so lonely as a Christian in this setting; I couldn’t wait for someone more mature and eloquent than myself to affirm the kerygma, the very heart of our faith.

However, I was so deeply disappointed. The Dean’s answer was, in effect, “No. Miracles don’t really happen.” The resurrection she believed in was only metaphorical.

Today’s Gospel reading puts this interpretation to shame. The disciples also did not understand—until they saw the tomb empty and the burial cloths neatly rolled. Until Jesus appeared to them and ate with them. Until Thomas was able to put his finger in Christ’s wound. The early disciples and the church fathers were unanimous in defending the truth of Christ’s bodily resurrection, and they would sooner offer up their lives than compromise on this issue.

But we might ask, “What difference does it make in our lives if Christ rose from the dead?” Jesus’s resurrection and ascension into heaven is the archetype and pledge of our own resurrection and ascension into heaven.

If we have no faith that the humanity of Jesus is with the Father in heaven, how could we have hope for ourselves?

And if we have no hope that God will one day be so close to us that His love will fill every corner of our hearts, how could we spend ourselves in loving service to one another on this Earth?

With God’s help, we are called to imitate the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ—according to our particular vocation and state of life. But by doing this, we are invited to share in Christ’s victory. We must not rob Jesus of His victory, which is pledged to be ours as well. More than any other day of the year, today is the day to rejoice in His triumph over death. Christ is Risen—and this is not just a metaphor! —He is truly Risen.

Image: Pietro Lorenzetti, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, Public Domain