EASTER SUNDAY - 5 April 2026
This is it! Today is the big one, the great truth, the ultimate truth – the RESURRECTION. Jesus, crucified, died and buried, rose from the dead. Ground-zero for every Christian is the belief that the dead man who went into the tomb came out ALIVE! St. Augustine describes Christ’s resurrection as “God’s supreme and wholly marvellous work.” Of course we rejoice for Jesus but His resurrection is not a one-off favour from the Father to His Son; it is also God’s promise to us. “Christ’s resurrection is the principle and source of our own future resurrection.” [CCC 655] We, too, will swop our lowly and corruptible body for a body that is glorified. For Jesus did not return as a ghost but in the flesh, with the marks of the nails still in His hands.
John’s gospel story of the resurrection is simple enough. When Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and finds the body of Jesus gone she suspects tomb-robbery. What else would she think? Although Jesus had taught the resurrection, the reality of how such a notion works was beyond anyone’s imagination. It is John who takes the “first step” to belief when he sees the interior of the tomb. Only a living man could leave his burial cloths like that. “Their position indicates that Christ’s body passed through them, leaving them where they were.” [Fr Raymond Brown, S.S.] Then Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene but it takes His voice to bring her to recognise Him. She returns to the disciples with the astounding exclamation: “I have seen the Lord.”
Jesus conquered death (somehow); He rose to new life in a heavenly body (somehow). The ‘how’ of the resurrection is a mystery. “It is accessible only to faith” [CCC 1000] Remember, no one saw (or could have understood) what happened in the tomb. Nevertheless, the resurrection was historically attested to by “concrete” witnesses, including the disciples, who saw and spoke with the Risen Lord; some even touched Him and ate with Him. The working out of this “transcendent event” is known only to God. Rather, ask ‘why’. Why did Jesus die then rise? To open the gates of death – for us; to take the “sting” out of death -for us; to make available His “glorious state of Lordship” -for us. In short, He wants us to be “like Him”.
The Resurrection, Christ’s and ours, means that “Life is born again” [Fr. Kevin Bates, S.M.] The lives of Christians are “swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life” [CCC655]. For that reason let us live and die as people destined for glory. ALLELUIA!
— GM
The Resurrection of Christ (photograph of a painting by Maerten de Vos) – public domain