THE RESURRECTION
As we continue our Easter celebration, I thought it might be a good
time to revisit the Resurrection as an event. How do we know it
happened? What is the evidence we look for, and what are theologians
saying about it?
Over the past few years I have read many articles and books on the
Resurrection of Jesus. Some simply state the Resurrection as fact and
talk about its significance. Others question the historical reality
of the Resurrection. Was it just an expression of the faith of the
apostles? Would anyone else have been able to see Jesus? Did it
really happen?
St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians: "And if Christ has
not been raised, our preaching is void and your faith is empty, too.
Indeed, we should then be exposed as false witnesses of God, for we
have borne witness before him that he raised up Christ; but he
certainly did not raise him up if the dead are not raised. Why?
Because if the dead are not raised , then Christ was not raised; and
if Christ was not raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in
your sins, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ are the deadest
of the dead. If our hopes in Christ are limited to this life only, we
are the most pitiable of all men." (I Cor. 15:14-19)
So the Resurrection is a fact. But what was Jesus like after the
Resurrection? Was he just a ghost or did he have bodily form?
To answer some of these questions let's look at the evidence. First
is the empty tomb. The fact that the tomb of Jesus was empty does not
in itself prove anything. There can be other explanations for the
empty tomb. One is that the disciples of Jesus came in the night a
stole his body. This is what the Sanhedrin feared would happen and
why they insisted that Pilot place guards at the tomb. What the empty
tomb can tell us is that the Resurrection, if it happened, was a
bodily Resurrection. In other words, Jesus was risen in his body.
His body no longer lays in the tomb but is resurrected. He was not a
ghost when he appeared to his disciples.
The fact that Jesus first appeared to women is another piece of the
evidentiary puzzle. Women, at the time of Christ, had no real
rights. Their testimony could not be used as evidence in court. If
the Resurrection was a faith experience, or a fabrication by the
apostles, they would not have had him appear first to the women at the
tomb. In fact, the apostles themselves did not believe the testimony
of the women. Why should they expect anyone else to? The women were
the first to see Jesus and, therefore, the first to proclaim the
Resurrection. A thing that was simply not part of the cultural
experience of the times.
It is the post Resurrection appearances that give us the most data
about the historical reality of the event and what the nature of the
resurrected Jesus was. Recall that when Jesus first appeared to the
disciples that first Easter night, they thought they were seeing a
ghost. Jesus assured them, using the evidence of his hands and feet,
that it was he and that he was not a ghost. He upbraided them for not
believing the women. He would appear to them at least two more times,
as well as appearing to others.
The nature of these appearances and the activity Jesus is involved in
during them shed some light on his own resurrected nature. Jesus eats
with the disciples. He allows them to touch his wounds. He cooks for
them. All this indicate that Jesus rose in bodily form. It was the
same body he had before the resurrection. But is was also very
different. Jesus was no longer confined by space and time. He could
appear suddenly through locked doors. He could disappear just as
suddenly as he did with the disciples in Emmaus. Clearly he was not
bound by the human condition they way we still are and the way he was
before his resurrection. Jesus still had the same body he had before
but his body was now glorified. His is a resurrected body, not simply
a resuscitated one. His body was now free from all human defect and
was no longer bound by natural law. But it still was a physical body
that could be seen by the doubting disciples and could still perform
such human activities as eating and touching.
As the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH states: "Given all these
testimonies, Christ's Resurrection can not be interpreted as something
outside the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it
as an historical fact." CCC#643
Jesus rose from the dead, body and soul, a physical event that can be
verified empirically. The apostles saw him and retold the stories of
his presence among them after his Resurrection. His body, the same
one he had before his Resurrection was no longer bound the laws of
nature but still retained his wounds of crucifixion. As Christians,
the historical accuracy of the Resurrection is central to our
belief.
As St. Paul says, "If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is
worthless."
