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04/12/2009
ReadingsActs 10:34a, 37-43
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-9
Christ is risen! Dying he destroyed our death, rising he restores our life!
Today’s first reading from Acts gives us the entire plan of salvation in a few short sentences. Peter’s address is directed towards Gentiles, but he wishes to emphasize both the uniqueness of Israel in God’s plan as well as the universal nature of that plan. Up until this time, the Jewish religion had been content to remain isolated and separate. But Christ’s resurrection changes everything. Now the saving word entrusted to the Chosen People will be preached to the whole world. As death is a universal affliction, so is Christ’s resurrection the remedy for all. “Jesus Christ…Lord of all” (Acts 10:36).
Peter also emphasizes the reality of the resurrection: “This man God raised (on) the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). In his resurrection Christ has a true physical body – it is no phantom or spirit. And the empty tomb tells us whose body it is: the same physical body which Jesus inhabited during his thirty-three years on earth, now miraculously glorified and transformed. There is a concrete realism in the language of Scripture regarding the resurrection. It is not something merely spiritual, but encompasses the entirety of the human experience. In the Incarnation God really became a man, and in the resurrection, Christ is truly raised, body and soul.
This is the destiny of all who faithfully follow Christ: the destruction of death and the resurrection of our frail, weak bodies. No longer will our bodies be something at war with us, dragging us into sin and death. Our glorified bodies will participate completely in our union with God, who is Spirit. For all eternity we will praise in body and soul the Risen Christ.
Christ is Risen! Hallelujah!
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