Sunday, April 20, 2003

Easter

 

Readings:

Acts 10:34a, 37-43 Witnesses to the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ

Psalm 117:1-2, 16-17, 22-23 This is the day that the Lord acted

Colossians 3:1-4 Christ our Life

John 20: 1-9 The resurrection: reconciliation with God, with our sisters and brothers, with the universe

 

What The Resurrection Isn't

In theology today it is popular to say that the resurrection of Jesus isn't a "historical" act. This isn't to say that it isn't real, but that it is something greater than a physical resuscitation. Indeed Jesus' resurrection actually isn't something that can be historically recordable. No one could have taken a picture of the resurrection itself. Jesus' resurrection is the object our faith, and is something more than a physical phenomenon. No one saw it; the writers of the gospels do not narrate it. The testimonies that they gave us are experiences of believers, who, after the death of Jesus, saw him alive again.

They are not testimonies of the resurrection itself. Jesus' resurrection is not the same as the reviving of Lazarus. Jesus' resurrection did not consist of a return to this life, nor was it the reanimation of a dead body. His resurrection (and our resurrection as well) is a transition from one form of life (the one we know on earth) and a new form of life: God's life. It is important to say again that our belief in the resurrection is not adherence to a myth, as happens in many religions that also have resurrection myths. What we affirm is not a physical event, but a true object of faith.

 

The "Good News Of The Resurrection" Was Controversial

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles is a bit peculiar. Why did the news of the resurrection make the Jews mad? Why did they begin to persecute the Christians? News of someone's being resurrected was in that religious world more frequent than in ours. It is surprising that the news of someone's resurrection would offend anyone! Be that as it may, the Jewish authorities responded negatively to the news of his resurrection. Today, on Easter Sunday, when we proclaim Jesus' resurrection, people either react positively, or with indifference. Why, then, was there such a different reaction immediately following Jesus' resurrection?

If we read the Acts of the Apostles closely, we will realize that the apostle's announcement of Jesus' resurrection also had a polemical element to it. They announced the resurrection of Jesus, "the one who you crucified." In other words, they weren't just abstractly announcing the resurrection — that Jesus' life had simply been prolonged. They also weren't announcing his resurrection as if it wasn't special, as if all that was important was that a human being had come back from the dead.

 

The Crucified One Is The Resurrected One

The apostles didn't announce Jesus' resurrection in the abstract, but in concrete — they announced the resurrection of a man, Jesus, who the civil and religious authorities rejected and condemned. His disciples had abandoned him, and God himself kept silent, as if he also had abandoned Jesus on the cross. With his death, everything seemed to be over. His disciples disbanded and seemed to forget all about him.

But then something happened. They had a new and powerful experience: they seemed to feel him alive! They began to understand that God had vindicated Jesus' name and his honor. "Jesus is alive!" God has resurrected him and he is seated at God's right hand. His life, word, and cause have been endorsed by God. Jesus was right. Those who sought to expell him from the world were wrong. God is part of Jesus, and supports the cause of the Crucified one.

It was precisely this that irritated the Jewish authorities. Jesus irritated them when he was alive and it irritated them even more that he was resurrected! For the Jewish authorities, it wasn't even the physical resurrection that irritated them the most. It was the fact that his cause, his project, his utopia, his good news — were so dangerous. They thought they were rid of him when they crucified him, and here he is again, alive, standing with his disciples. They couldn't believe that God would be on Jesus' side!

 

To Believe With Jesus' Faith

But the disciples, who were rediscovering the face of God in Jesus,

understood that he was the Son, the Lord, the Truth, the Way, the Life, Alpha and Omega. Death didn't have any power over him. He was alive. He was resurrected. There was nothing they could do except confess their faith in him, follow him, pursue his cause, and obey God. To believe in the resurrection wasn't an affirmation of a historical event, nor the truth of an abstract theory about the afterlife. It was an affirmation of his Cause, the Kingdom of God.

 

To believe in the resurrection of Jesus is, above all, is to believe that his word and his Kingdom express the fundamental value of our lives. Our faith is the same as Jesus' faith (his vision about life, his role in history, his ministry to the poor and the powerful). Our faith is as controversial as the faith preached by the first apostles and the Nazarene himself!

If the resurrection of Jesus is reduced to a symbol of eternal life after death, or a simple affirmation of life in the face of death, or a physical event that took place over twenty centuries ago — then his resurrection will be emptied of its power and will not say anything to anyone. It will not irritate the powerful of the world.

 

It is not important to believe IN Jesus; it is important to BELIEVE Jesus. It is not that we have faith IN Jesus (his role in history, his Cause, his treatment of the poor, his purpose, or his dedicated cause). To believe in Jesus in Latin America, or anywhere in the so called "Christian" West, where so many people invoke his name to justifiy positions to which he would be opposed— this suggests that we need to rediscover the historical Jesus and feel a new faith in his resurrection.

Believing Jesus with this faith, we can see that the "things of heaven" and of earth are not directly opposites. The New World is slowly being grafted into this world below. We have to allow this painful birth to take place, knowing that we can not create the New World without the grace of the one who is coming again. To look for the "things of heaven" is not to wait passively for the world to come, but to realize that our world is the Kingdom of the Resurrected One and his cause: the kingdom of life, justice, love, and peace.

For personal consideration:

Peter described Jesus as the one who lived in order to do good, setting the oppressed free. Is this also our purpose in life — in our small group, our community, our church? Are we also witnesses of the risen Christ? What purpose will we give ourselves during this Easter season?

For the group’s consideration:

What do theologians mean when they say that the Resurrection of Jesus isn't a historical event? What does it mean to call the Resurrection a myth? Can you think of an experience in your own life which you cannot describe empirically, but which is nonetheless true?

In some artistic representations of the resurrection of Jesus, his saving work is so accentuated that we lose track of his humanity. Theologians throughout Latin America have responded by saying that it wasn't "just anybody" that was resurrected, but Jesus of Nazareth. "The resurrected is the crucified." The Father resurrected the crucified, a person who had been rejected by the world. The resurrection was an act of justice. When God resurrected Jesus, God clearly shows himself to be on the side of the rejected one. What, then, is the relationship between God's resurrection of Jesus Christ and God's preferential option for the poor?

 

For the prayers of the faithful:

-For the society, that we might search for and find ways to avoid the death of our planet, and instead contribute to the resurrection of the ecosystems which we have nearly made extinct. We pray to the Lord...

 

-For all who have responsibility in our communities, that, with the action of God and the community, they might be made conscious of the importance of humanity, and promote more humane modes of life. We pray to the Lord...

 

- For all who believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, that we might realize the justice of the Kingdom of God — the utopia for which Jesus died — and for which God resurrected him. We pray to the Lord...

 

-For the entire church, that we might always have a testimony of hope, optimism, happiness, and mercy. We pray to the Lord...

 

-For all who have hope for the transformation of the world, that they might receive strength in their fight. We pray to the Lord...

 

-For the Lord who gives us courage to always affirm life in the face of death; hope in the face of despair; and love in the face of selfishness. We pray to the Lord...

 

Led us pray

Through your Son, the destroyer of death, we pray that you will protect and help us so that we might be renewed by our Easter joy, work to overcome

death, and increase your kingdom, until we experience its total consummation in the return of our Lord Jesus Christ; we pray in his name, who lives and reigns from age to age. Amen.