February 7, 2022 at 8:05 p.m.
The central message of our faith
The central message of our faith
If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised,
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain;
you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.
Did Jesus the Christ physically rise from the dead? Yes or no? And if he did, what does that mean for us as those who profess in the Christ as God?
Let’s start with a via negativa, a way of looking at what this whole thing would mean if we were to hold that Jesus the Christ is not risen from the dead? Let’s face it, there are many who do not hold that the resurrection of Christ in the flesh was a literal event.
There are those who hold, learned as they might be, that the event of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead was not a physical event. Some hold that the resurrection was merely an interior feeling of forgiveness and mission given to the Apostles and Disciples to go forth to carry on the message of Jesus, namely kindness and goodness to the whole world.
There are even other theories from certain thinkers that are more far out, thoughts that make the concept of the resurrection of the Lord into a more hallucinogenic concept, stating that a physical body, once dead, can never come to life.
My friends, if we are to believe that, even for a second, then we are deluding ourselves. The Apostle Paul, who had encountered the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus, knew this. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, has consequences for each of us who bear the name of Christian.
If Jesus is not physically risen from the dead, we are, as the Apostle Paul states, pitiful. All that we long for, all for which we desire, is in vain. Christ’s physical resurrection is the promise and foretaste of our own resurrections. We who hope in him, who believe in him, we who are part of his Mystical Body, the Church, trust that our Head and Shepherd, the good and gentle Jesus the Christ, has already led the way for us, and that one day as he is, we too shall be.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus in the flesh is not just a concept, not just a nice myth or idea, but it is the central point of our faith. It is not ancillary to any other aspect of our faith, but indeed is the kerygma of our Christian faith.
This week, let’s reflect on what exactly the resurrection of Jesus the Christ in the flesh means for our poor, weak, mortal flesh, and then give thanks! The all-beautiful Christ, who was battered, beaten, bloodied and bruised for us and for our salvation, redeems our own flesh, which has also in so many ways, been battered, beaten, bloodied and bruised. Nothing human is foreign to the Lord Christ, except sin. And, because he is God Incarnate, because he is Love Incarnate, the Christ became sin in all its ugliness and brokenness, in order to save us, not just in spirit, but indeed, one day in the resurrection of the just, in the flesh. Praise God for this gift.
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
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