Before Lent began I suggested that we focus studies on the meaning of the resurrection. Now as we enter Holy Week and Easter draws very near, it is fitting to say a few things about this central doctrine of our faith.
Resurrection is more than resuscitation or revivification. A drowned person can be resuscitated. Medical procedures revive patients following a cardiac arrest. However, drowning victims and heart attack sufferers will one day die again. Resurrection is God’s response to human sickness and death. He gives us a new, embodied life. Not just a disembodied soul. The doctrine of the resurrection is not merely a quaint way of talking about the immortality of the soul. God grants us a new kind of life. After we pass through death God raises us mind, soul, and body. Our new bodies will no longer be susceptible to suffering, decay and death. Jesus is the forerunner of what God has in store for the creation as a whole.
The resurrection of Jesus can be understood from the perspective of the past, the present, and the future.
Let’s start with the past. The resurrection of Jesus Christ occurred at a point in human history. It is not an event whose reality is acknowledged by academic historians as a fact, but it is the definitive historical event for faithful Christians. We believe that God really raised Jesus from the dead even if the constraints of academic historiography prevent history professors from talking about God’s involvement in human life in professional journals and scholarly books. As members of the Christian community we have already accepted the validity and profundity of the witnesses who came before us. Those earliest witnesses experienced an empty tomb and they experienced the risen Lord himself. In the pages of Scripture they tell us that they have seen him, touched him, and even eaten with him. We can and do accept their testimony and base our lives on it. We take their word for it when the rules of academic evidence and publishing will not allow professional historians to do so. Think of it this way: I trust what my wife tells me about her family of origin, her school days, and her experiences in college. I trust what she tells me about how she spends her day. Her testimony does not rise to the level necessary for academic history. But I am confident of its truth because of my confidence in her. So too I trust the witness of the Christian community about the resurrection of Jesus precisely because of my confidence in who they are and whose they are.
Next, let’s think about the resurrection from the perspective of the present. Jesus is risen. He is alive now, this moment. He is alive in a way that makes my life pale by comparison. I really encounter him on a regular basis. In the Blessed Sacrament. In the Scriptures. In the sisters and brothers of my parish family. In the poor and the marginalized. In the movements of the Holy Spirit in my own life. The risen Lord is at work guiding me and transforming me through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Finally, we turn to the future. As the Nicene Creed says, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” The resurrection—our resurrection—is on our horizon. We are promised a new life. A new kind of life. Eternal life. A life that has passed through sorrow, sickness, and death and will never undergo them again. Jesus is the first fruit of the new era awaiting the entire creation. The resurrection is the source of our hope. A life stirred and energized by hope can endure all things and can change the world.
This marks our first Easter together as Dean and Cathedral parish. I enter the Great Fifty Days of Easter with gratitude for you. You have been kind and gracious and generous in countless ways. But what has moved me most is how genuinely you have embraced me and taken me into your lives. My calling here is to love you with the love that our Lord has given us all to share. You make that very easy to do. May the Holy Spirit fill you with all joy and hope this Easter Season. Joining with Joy, Meredith, Patrick and Andrew, I wish you all an Easter filled with every blessing.
