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Each year, a second
grade teacher in a Catholic school has her class make Easter cards to
take home and give to their parents. Among this teacher’s all-time
favorite cards is the one depicting the central event of Easter day. On
the front of the card is a broadly smiling Jesus sitting up in a coffin
and waving. In the balloon coming from his mouth were the words: “Hello
again!”
Would that it was so
simple and straight-forward to understand what Scripture means where it
says “Jesus had to rise from the dead.” But, of course, the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead isn’t that simple to
understand, especially for people like us who live in a technologically
sophisticated world where science is thought to be the only avenue of
human inquiry capable of providing definitive truths about profound
mysteries of human existence, like death and life after death.
We all know that
this debate, where science and its methodological rigors are pitted
against religion and its claims, is nothing new. What is new for us,
however, is that many people—perhaps seated here among us—think science
has definitively trumped religion to the point that answers to the
question “How did the resurrection happen?” are more important than
answers to the questions “What is the resurrection?” and “What does the
resurrection mean?”
The question, “How
did it happen?”, directs attention to physical things like the exact
place where the event itself transpired, the step-by-step process by
which the body was resuscitated, irrefutable first-hand accounts by
eyewitnesses to the events, and the like. The goal of gathering this
evidence is to be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the fact
that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.
Well, we did hear
two, first-hand accounts in this morning’s scripture readings. But, are
they able to withstand scientific scrutiny?
In the gospel, St.
John tells us that Mary of Magdala told Simon Peter and the other
disciple whom Jesus loved, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and
we don’t know where they put him.” Checking out the story themselves,
both went into the tomb and, we were told, “saw and believed.” It is
entirely appropriate to ask, “What did they see and believe?” Was it
what Mary had said, namely, that Jesus’ body was taken from the tomb and
hidden somewhere? The gospel itself even states: “For they did not yet
understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”
Then, the reading
from the Acts of the Apostles reports Peter as saying: “This man God
raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the
people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and
drank with him after he rose from the dead.” Yet, there are a host of
problems associated with Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection, the
most prominent being: if Jesus rose in his body, why elsewhere in the
gospels and in Acts of the Apostles did the apostles not recognize Jesus
when he appeared to them in the days and weeks following his
resurrection?
People of faith
should not be troubled. Science is absolutely correct in asserting that
there is no physical evidence proving beyond the shadow of a doubt the
fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on that Easter day.
All we have are reports—first-hand accounts, allegedly—telling us what
happened. And, it ends up, these are hardly convincing.
What many people
want today, just like Thomas “the Doubter” did in the weeks following
Jesus’ resurrection, is factual evidence that will stand up to rigorous
and objective scrutiny. “I will not believe,” Thomas said, “until I can
place my fingers in the nail holes in his hands and my hand into the
wound in his side.” The methodology of science cannot help us to answer
the question “How did Jesus rise from the dead?” because it is
absolutely impossible to go back and to gather the physical evidence
that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how Jesus Christ rose from
the dead that Easter day.
Did Thomas have it
exactly right? Is his assertion correct and should we accept it?
Basically, Thomas was stating what many people today state, namely, “I
must be able to understand before I will believe.” Thomas wanted the
facts if he was going to believe.
Belief,
however, isn’t based upon facts. This is what so many people have a
problem with evidently not only in St. Thomas’ day but in our day as
well. “To believe” is not to ask the question “How did the resurrection
happen?” but to ask two very different questions, “What is the
resurrection?” and “What does the resurrection mean?”
Let’s consider an
analogy that may help us to understand better what the resurrection is
and what it means.
Take the statement
many young men have uttered to themselves throughout all of human
history, “I believe I’m in love with her.” (Many young women have also
uttered a similar statement and I don’t what to be accused of sexism.
So, if you’d rather the analogy be female, just make the appropriate
substitution of words.)
Asking himself the
question, “What is this thing I am feeling toward her?” and labeling it
“love,” the young man then proceeds to ask himself “What does this
mean?” As he considers his love for the young woman and all that it
engenders in him physically, emotionally, and spiritually, the young man
finds himself believing that he cannot live without young woman. He may
also find himself believing that God created her especially for him, to
be his wife, the mother of his children, and to share the entirety of
his life with her and, likewise, that God created him especially for
her, to be her husband, the father of her children, and to share the
entirety of her life with him. And so, believing that he loves her and
now understanding what that means for him, the young man gets down on
his knee and proposes marriage to the young woman.
However, notice that
the young man didn’t first check out all of the important facts about
the young woman before he proposed to her. Quite likely, the young man
didn’t run a credit report, examine her family tree, cross-examine his
potential would be mother-in-law (that’s my Dad’s advice), or have DNA
testing done to determine what kinds of genetic liabilities the young
woman carries with her.
So, is that what the
young man should do to determine whether he really and truly loves her?
Should he go out and gather as many facts as possible and weigh them
soberly and dispassionately? Of course, that’s ridiculous. After all,
there is no such thing as a perfect human being and the weight of
evidence will always be on the side of not taking such a risk with one’s
life.
The lesson of this
analogy?
Only when belief in
one’s love for another inspires marriage and motivates it, is it
possible to understand what true love is, what it truly means, and what
it will truly require in the future until death. Unlike St. Thomas who
wanted to understand in order to believe, we have to believe if we are
to understand.
So, what is the
resurrection and what does it mean?
The resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead is requires belief that God’s final and
definitive intervention in time and space teaches us that the power of
death is not the final word. It might not seem like that when a loved
one dies and we have the difficult task of learning to live with the
absence of someone dear. It might not seem like that when we are
injured or betrayed by someone we love or a friend. It might not seem
like that when strangers wash up on our shores and need financial and
other forms of assistance to “get up on their feet.”
But, because we
human beings are “bound to the things of earth,” the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead challenges us to “seek what is above,” as St.
Paul told the Colossians, and to think about those things—“not of what
is on earth”—by rising above and beyond scientific facts—the “how”—to
view what these facts are and what they mean…from God’s perspective.
From God’s
perspective, death is neither the final word nor the strongest earthly
power. No, love is the final word and the strongest earthly power. As
St. John teaches, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life.” Love continues to bind us to departed loved ones, making the
absent present; love motivates us to forgive those who have hurt or
injured us, making friends of enemies; love moves us to reach out to
strangers, making family and friends of complete strangers.
For science, the
Cross teaches the fact of death and can say nothing about what
ensues beyond that fact. But, for religion, the Cross teaches belief
in the power of God’s love that evidences itself in the resurrection and
the fullness of everlasting life that follows.
No, Jesus did not
sit upon in a coffin and with a big smile say to his disciples, “Hello
again!” His body, once broken and dead, has been raised by the power of
God’s love to a new life that cannot be extinguished.
We, too, experience
this new life as we look beyond the empty tomb of past weaknesses,
defects, and failures and experience the power of God’s love flooding
into our hearts. This experience pushes us beyond seeking
proof—physical evidence—as science requires. No, the experience pushes
us to believe—the foundation of religion—that God is with us now, that
God will be with us as we enter into death, and that God will bring us
into our resurrected glory in heaven. As Pope Benedict XVI has noted:
“Belief in the resurrection of Jesus says that there is a future for
every human being; the cry for unending life…is indeed
answered....Anyone who even begins to understand what this means also
knows what it means to be redeemed.” |
HOMILY
