To be a Christian means to necessarily be an optimist because we remember what happened on the third day! We know the final stage of death, Jesus’ leap of faith, was not in vain. He was not put to shame, and “God raised him up” (which is the correct way to say it, and not that he rose himself). Most of human life is Holy Saturday, a few days of life are Good Friday, but
What shall we offer you, O Christ?Who for our sake appeared on earth as a human?Every creature made by you offers you thanksgiving.The angels offer you a hymn,The heavens, a star,The magi, gifts,The shepherds, their wonder,The earth, its cave,The wilderness, a manger,And we offer to you, a Virgin Mother.(Vesper Hymn) The simplicity of the story of Christ’s birth reveals the depth of God’s love and the mystery of His actions in our life. As we
“Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of all who fall asleep.” ~1 Corinthians 15:20 St. Paul seldom leaves the message at the level of “believe this fact about Jesus.” He always moves it to “this is what it says about you!” or “this is what it says about history!” Until we are ourselves pulled into the equation, we find it hard to invest ourselves in a distant religious belief. Paul normally
The earth trembled; its foundations shook
like silt; the sun, chagrined,
fled the scene, and every mundane
element scattered in retreat. The day
became the night: for light could not endure
the image of the Master hanging on a tree.
Of Time and Eternity: The Resurrection (Part II) In the passages in which it addresses the Resurrection, then, the New Testament witnesses not to the resuscitation of a corpse, and certainly nothing like a return to the life of this world. It addresses rather the entire passage of Jesus from earthly mode of existence to a spiritual and eternal mode of existence. The Jesus whom faith proclaims as the Lord of the universe is no
Of Time and Eternity: The Resurrection (Part I) Nothing about Jesus is so misunderstood, misrepresented, trivialized and falsified as the Resurrection. Everything in the Gospels has to be understood in light of the Resurrection. Christian faith takes its meaning from the Resurrection—every claim about Jesus, every notion of what it means to live in trusting hope, every view of the world, every take on reality. What the Christian knows of God—with “knowledge” that is qualitatively
One has to distinguish most carefully between the healing of nature and the healing of the will. Nature is healed and restored with a certain compulsion, by the mighty power of God’s omnipotent and invincible grace. One may even say, by some “violence of grace.” The wholeness is in a way forced upon human nature. For in Christ all human nature (the “seed of Adam”) is fully and completely cured from unwholeness and mortality. This
The Resurrection of Christ was a victory, not over his death only, but over death in general. “We celebrate the death of Death, the downfall of Hell, and the beginning of a life new and everlasting.” In His Resurrection the whole of humanity, all human nature, is co-resurrected with Christ, “the human race is clothed in incorruption.” Co-resurrected not indeed in the sense that all are raised from the grave. Men do still die; but
In the death of the Savior the powerlessness of death over Him was revealed. In the fullness of His human nature Our Lord was mortal, since even in the original and spotless human nature a “potentia mortis” was inherent. The Lord was killed and died. But death did not hold Him. “It was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). St. John Chrysostom commented: “He Himself permitted it. … Death itself
“I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Part III) The very death of the Incarnate reveals the resurrection of human nature (St. John of Damascus, De fide orth., 3.27; cf.Homil. in Magn. Sabbat., 29). “Today we keep the feast, for our Lord is nailed upon the Cross,” in the sharp phrase of St. John Chrysostom (In crucem et latronem, hom. 1). The death on the Cross is a victory over death not only because it
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