The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

I once asked a grade 6 class "What do you think you would see if you were sitting inside the tomb at the moment of Jesus' resurrection?" There was silence. But no one suggested that the Lord stood up, pushed the stone aside and walked away. Finally a boy said, "I reckon you would see his body vanish." I looked around the room and saw that they all seemed to understand what he meant.

Perhaps this modern child was drawing on science fiction incidents. But behind that futurist mythology, are new scientific theories of matter, time and space and the various dimensions of reality. Our more flexible views of physics and matter make it easier for us to make sense of events that are not "symbolic" or "mythical". Yet these theories cannot "explain" or describe how the resurrection and ascension came about. These events retain a strong dimension of mystery.

Was the Risen Body of Jesus Real?

Jesus of Nazareth who is raised up and who ascends is God and Man. God has assumed our human nature. Now he takes this into that eternal dimension we call "heaven". Our nature includes the body, indeed it depends on the body, because we are embodied souls or, if you prefer it, "ensouled" bodies. Christ rose again, in his own body, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains (nos. 639-647). It is very important to read these paragraphs of the Catechism.

The disciples were liberated by One whose first word was "Peace!" and whose first act was to eat food with them (Luke ). They rejoiced precisely when they understood that he could eat and drink with them, that he could be handled, especially when he called the bluff of skeptical Thomas and asked him to put his fingers and hand into the wounds (not that we are told that Thomas went that far!). They knew he was not a ghost - and everyone believed in ghosts in those times. They knew the difference - and that difference made the Resurrection a unique and shattering event that changed their lives completely. It is one thing to see your best friend floating like smoke three days after he died. It is another thing for him to sit down and eat dinner with you and invite you to take his hand.

Saint Paul insisted that the Resurrection is the decisive point in Christianity, that if Christ has not risen again then our faith is in vain and we are fools (1 Corinthians 15: 12-23). He not only had direct contact with the witnesses, but he himself was the last one to be granted a vision of the risen Lord, which converted him from bitter opposition to Christianity, as we are told in his words (1 Corinthians 15:8, Galatians 1: 11-12) and in Luke's account ( Acts 9: 3-8). The Resurrection was the first message of the first apostolic preaching at Pentecost (Acts 2: 23-36). For holding to this conviction that Jesus had risen in his own body and for refusing to deny it, most of the witnesses suffered violent martyrdom. They did not die for believing in ghosts!

This helps us understand why, already in the Gospels, the first Christians were insisting on the physical reality of the risen Lord who had appeared to them. It seems as if they were responding to attacks on the Resurrection that attempted to explain it away as merely a haunting or an illusion. One of the earliest heresies was "Docetism", the teaching that Jesus merely appeared to be human, but was really God pretending to be human through some kind of spiritual illusion. Therefore Jesus did not suffer in a real body, nor did he rise again in a real body. Docetists had a distaste for material reality. Those today who deny or quibble about the physical Resurrection of Jesus may well share the same bias. But the Catholic Church insists on the literal bodily Resurrection of Jesus.

The problem of Docetism was a lingering pest, especially in regions strongly influenced by Greek philosophy. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the Church of Smyrna at the transition from the first to the second century, insisted on the physical reality of God taking our flesh, suffering in our flesh and rising again in that same flesh.

The Empty Tomb Tradition

At the very foundation of the Resurrection accounts is the empty tomb (Mark 16: 1-6, Matthew 28: 1-6, 11-15). It not only underlines the conviction that the body of Jesus was involved in his rising again, but it was the first clue to his rising again - which no-one saw when it happened. We are familiar with the impact the empty tomb had on Peter and the beloved disciple (John 20: 1-9).

There are various theories why these men, looking into a cave at a shroud and wrappings, were the left convinced of the Resurrection. One theory is interesting and plausible, that they saw the shape of the "mummy" (the shroud and wrappings, with the head band in its own place) just as if the body of Jesus had dematerialized and the fabric had suddenly collapsed. In other words, they did not see disorder caused by grave robbers who would throw the wrapping around the tomb. In this regard the Jerusalem Bible translation is inaccurate when its says that the cloths were "on the ground", which could imply disorder. The Greek original simple says that they were lying "there" - epeita.

However, what is perhaps the earliest written reference to the Resurrection in the New Testament is Paul's careful repetition of the belief held in the Jerusalem Church, 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8. Paul tells us he is only passing on what the Jerusalem community taught.

Here we note the inclusion of the words "he was buried". Outside the context of death and rising again of a body, the words "he was buried" do not make much sense. The Jerusalem community of believers kept reference to the burial in their little creed about the Resurrection precisely to get away from misleading ideas about a haunting. They wanted to affirm that what was buried literally rose again, and here we should note that the Greek word for "resurrection" means "to make someone stand up again". These same words. "he was buried" flowed on into the ancient baptismal creed which we know as the Apostles Creed and then into the later Nicene Creed. Interest in the burial and its inclusion in the great Creeds was acceptance of the empty tomb as an integral element in the Resurrection event.

The Power of the Risen Body

Certainly there is a radical spiritual dimension to the Resurrection. Jesus is not a resuscitated corpse, and it is grossly unfair and dishonest for critics to suggest that we Catholics believe this. The raising of Lazarus was not a complete resurrection. After our Lord called him back to life, he lived on for some years and then died. Therefore, if our fleshly reality is raised up in Jesus, the two Gospel accounts that insist on this also clearly indicate that his risen body is no longer tied to the laws of time, space and matter. He could materialize anywhere (Luke 24: 36, John 20:26). He could conceal his identity on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:16). Yet in this wondrous state of glory the human body still matters. The God who took our human flesh through Mary does not scorn it or eject it in his glorious Resurrection and Ascension.

We are thus called to keep a sense of balance, avoiding these erroneous extremes:

The resuscitation of a corpse,
a ghostly apparition,
some inner "spiritual" experience.

Saint Paul himself indicates the spiritual nature of resurrection, in an accurate sense, in 1 Corinthians 15: 35-58. Here, having presented faith in the Resurrection of Jesus, he goes on to talking to the Corinthians about the future resurrection that is our Christian hope. He is obviously modelling the risen bodies of believers on the risen body of the Lord. In a way we cannot explain, for it is beyond the laws of matter, as we understand them, our own bodies will be involved in the final restoration and glorification of reality at the end of time. This is the ultimate hope that develops through faith in the foundation of Christianity - the Resurrection of Jesus, his exaltation as ho Kyrios, the Lord.