Easter Tuesday
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today’s Gospel from St. Luke records the appearance of Jesus to his disciples on the first Easter Day. Jesus came and stood in the midst of his disciples, but they were troubled and supposed that they saw a spirit. Jesus therefore said to them: “See my hands, and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.” He then ate a piece of broiled fish in their presence. He expounded the Scriptures to them that showed how this was all the fulfilment of the hope of Moses and the prophets, that the Christ should suffer and be raised on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.
The Gospel has recorded how the women had found the tomb empty on the first Easter morning, and had seen a vision of angels saying that Jesus was alive. He had appeared to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus and made himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. He now appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem. When they feared that they had seen a ghost he showed them his hands and feet, which still bore the wounds of his passion. It was a message very different from the impassive serenity of the Buddha, detached from the world of pain and suffering. The risen Christ showed that our ultimate destiny is not dissolution into an impersonal absolute, but rather the healing of our wounds in resurrected bodies.
It is important to emphasise the distinctive nature of our Christian hope and how it differs from other religions and philosophies. Most people throughout human history have believed in some sort of life after death, but it has usually taken the form of survival into another mode of existence, not belief in the resurrection of the body. It is held that this life cannot be all that there is, but any future life does not seem radically different from this one. In fact, far from being something to be hoped for, it can often seem quite depressing, as the life in any future world goes on in much the same way as before.
In reaction to this view, many have sought refuge in a belief not in mere survival of death, but in the immortality of the soul. The body may die, but the soul or spiritual part of man lives on, for it belongs to a higher world and cannot perish with the end of bodily existence. This view was classically expressed by the Greek philosopher Plato with his allegory of the cave in which in this life we only see shadows of another realm beyond this. Our ultimate destiny is in that higher reality and to escape this world of space, time and matter which is corrupt and transient.
A different vision arose in ancient Israel. In the face of those around them who believed in many gods, the Israelites believed in only one God, the maker of all things and judge of all men. Far from being a curse to be escaped from human life was a blessing to be enjoyed. But although man had been created good and in the image of God he had succumbed to pride and fallen. Hence, sin and death had entered the world. There was a tension between the world as it is and as it ought to be. Hence, the Hebrew prophets looked forward to a final messianic age, when God’s kingdom would finally come on earth as it is in heaven and the wolf would live with the lamb.
The this worldly focus of the religion of ancient Israel left little room for any interest in life after death, although many of the Psalms seem to speak of hope beyond anything that can be realised in this world. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of the future messianic age as like a resurrection of the dead, in which a valley of dry bones come alive again (Ezekiel 37). Since God had made man in his own image, but humanity was also fallen and sinful, the whole person would die, but ultimately the whole man would be raised. The book of Daniel concluded by saying that some would be raised to a life of eternal blessedness, for others it would be torment (Daniel 12). Many of the Maccabean martyrs went to their deaths in the hope that they would rise again. Indeed, the second book of Maccabees said that without this hope in the final resurrection it would be superfluous and vain to pray for the dead (2 Maccabees 7).
Hence, by the time of Jesus, the majority of Jews had come to believe in a final resurrection of the dead. Jesus affirmed this hope, but he also spoke of the Kingdom of God as not simply a future expectation, but a reality that was already breaking into history in his own person and ministry. The resurrection which they were expecting at the end of time had already happened to Jesus in the middle of time. Although the old order of sin and death was still proceeding apace, it had been in principle defeated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
St. Paul explained the nature of the Christian hope in his epistle to the Corinthians, some of whom said that there was no resurrection of the dead and seem to have believed only in an immortality of the soul. He had himself seen the risen Christ and before him there had been many other witnesses, some of whom were still alive when Paul was writing and whom he knew personally. Though humanity was in Adam and consequently fallen and sinful, the resurrection of Jesus had shown that this was not God’s last word. For Christ had now been risen from the dead and had become the first fruits of them that slept. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive on that day when God will finally be all in all.
But, some of the Corinthians were asking how were the dead raised and with what kind of body shall they come? St. Paul emphasised that that which is sown could not come to life until it dies. There was first that which is natural and only after that which is spiritual. The first man was from the earth, but the new man in Christ is from heaven. Our existing human frame belonged to the realm of death along with all other created things, but on the last day it would be raised to life and this corruption would put on incorruption and this mortal would put on immortality. The faithful could give thanks to God who had given them the victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. They could therefore be stedfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as in the Lord their labour was not in vain.
Hence, our Christian hope is not in survival of death or merely in the immortality of the soul, but in the final resurrection of the body. Sin and death do not have the last word, for in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus they have been in principle defeated and we too shall share in that risen and glorified life in that new heaven and that new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
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