Easter Sunday Year B 2024

Peter talks about both the physicality of the resurrection, although with a transcendent dimension, and Christ’s rule from the transcendent dimension. Paul likewise picks up the dual aspects, even if his concern is with our being with Christ in the transcendent realm now before the resurrection of our bodies. John has both of these in narrative. The disciples are not expecting nor do they first assume a resurrection until they see that the graveclothes are empty, hollow, with the rolled up facecloth revealing the hollowness - somehow Jesus has passed through the gravecloths and so he is resurrected. John goes on to point out that while transcendent Jesus was graspable and could eat and drink with his disciples, his witnesses, so very physical. Our goal is to realize that there is a God-man in the presence of the Father and that that means our transformation and resurrection too. But now we are to spiritually one with him where he is, having been given new life by baptism, drawing every closer to Christ and being divinized, while at the same time bearing witness to him as we await his return and our resurrection at the renewal of all things.

Notes

Transcript

Title

Resurrection to Rule

Outline

With respect to our day Peter notes two things in Acts ch 13

First, after politely referring to Jesus’ death as “hanging him on a tree,” Peter notes that he was physically raised to life: while maintaining transcendence he was visible to the chosen witnesses (“God gave him to become visible”); he could eat, for these witnesses, including Peter, ate and drank with him. How much more intimate and tangible could a man become? They knew he was physically alive even if he was not always visible nor to everyone.

Second, Peter asserts that he and the other witnesses had been appointed to proclaim that Jesus is the one appointed to do the divine job, “judge of the living and the dead.” This, Peter, asserts, is not in discontinuity with the Old Testament, but in continuity.

To explain how the two can fit together one must explain how humanity can be joined to divinity and how that humanity can be transformed through resurrection.

Paul picks this up in Colossians

We are raised with Christ in baptism, a Christ who is now our life and who will appear, i.e. become visible, but only in the future. Our duty is to “seek what is above” not “what is on earth” for our real life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ is “seated at the right hand of God” which is the place of power and authority, the one who can judge or rule the living and the dead. Notice a resurrected Christ who can become visible but who is now in the transcendent realm. Notice also that in baptism we are given a new life so that we can be one with him and he can be our life. The alternative Pauline readings point out that we need to struggle to make this our reality.

Now look at our Gospel

Mary of Magdala, John’s focal character, comes to the tomb and only sees the stone rolled away and assume grave robbery - the body has been stolen. So Peter and the BD run to the tomb, the BD arriving first (an incidental detail the converted Graham Greene) see graveclothes but does not seem to realize that they are empty. Remember that they were wrapped around the body with 100 lbs of spices sticking them together, according to our gospel. Peter, on the other hand, boldly enters the tomb. There are the gravecloths still stuck together, but the handkerchief or neck protector (from the sun) is not with them, but neatly rolled up in a separate place (it would not have had the sticky spices applied). There is a hole where the face had been. The gravecloths were empty. Jesus is not there, nor were the cloths ripped open and the body removed, but he had somehow passed through the cloths and he or someone else has neatly set aside the spoudarion so that those entering could see he was gone. Now the disciples got it: he had risen from the dead. Only later would they connect this to the Old Testament.

And only later would they realize that he was still quite physical, if also transcendent, for Mary of Magdala will meet him outside the tomb and he will have to tell her, “Stop holding on to me,” for he was there to hold onto. And still later he prepares breakfast for his disciples in Galilee and they eat together (again with an extraneous eye witness detail, 153 fish).

Sisters [Brothers and Sisters] we are called to discover the resurrection practically

Jesus did not, according to the eyewitnesses, leave his body or dissolves his body, and simply disappear into the transcendent realm. Instead, Jesus’ body remains a body, which, when God wills it, can be seen, be grasped, and can eat and drink before us. A human has been resurrected and transformed as the Blessed Virgin will be later and as we will be when he returns. Jesus is still the God-man, but he is man as we will be in the resurrection.

But Jesus is also divine, metaphorically sitting at the right hand of God, ruling over the living and the dead, in a transcendent realm, and we, if raised in Christ in baptism can in spirit be living there with and in him.

Our resurrection is making our bodies capable of the transcendent realm and uniting them with our spirits. But that assumes that we have been following Paul’s instructions and have been seeking Christ, have been finding our life hidden in Christ, have been becoming like Christ, have been becoming partakers in the divine nature. Living with and in Christ is our task in the present so we can witness to Christ so long as our bodies still walk this earth.

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