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Friday, March 1, 2013

CFC [P.181 - 190]


632.     Third. As effected by the Trinity, the Resurrection represents the definitive intervention of the Triune God into creation and our human history. As in all out-going divine acts, the Resurrection is effected by all three divine Persons working together, but each according to the distinctiveness proper to each (cf. CCC 648-50).
 Thus, like the source of Jesus’ divine sonship and mission is the Father, so too the divine power raising Jesus from the dead has its source in the Father (cf. Acts 2:24). Also, like Jesus’ very conception in the Virgin Mary, the divine power re-vivifying and glorifying the dead Jesus, body and soul, is the Holy Spirit. And as sharing equally together with Father and Spirit the one divine power, the Eternal Son works his own humanity’s resurrection as Jesus promised. “I have the power to lay down my life, and to take it up again” (Jn 10:18).


II. NEW TESTAMENT WITNESS
TO THE RESURRECTION

633.     The New Testament gives witness to Christ’s Resurrection in three basic ways. First, the Kerygma or early preaching of the Gospel, proclaimed the central importance of Christ’s Resurrection. This was true for both the commission and authority of the apostles, and for grounding the Christian Faith itself. Second, Jesus’ Presence, both in the Risen Christ’s appearances, and then through the teaching, moral exhortation, and worship of the Apostolic Church, witnesses to his Resurrection. The appearances of the Risen Christ illumine how he relates to us through his witnesses, and the essential need for faith.

634.     And finally, the Resurrection is proclaimed as the Christians’ future. It indicates how God saves, and illustrates this by the empty tomb. The empty tomb provides invaluable insight into our future by showing how God actually saves us bodily in Christ. We shall briefly investigate each of these three ways of witnessing to Christ’s Resurrection.


A.   The Resurrection as Kerygma

635. The early preaching contrasts Jesus’ death for sin with his Resurrection by God, and connects them with his appearances to his disciples and fulfilling Scripture. “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; . . . he was buried; . . . he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures; . . . he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve” (1 Cor 15:3b-5). And again: “We believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, Jesus who was handed over to death for our transgressions and was raised for our justification” (Rom 4:24-25).

636.     In key texts, Jesus’ Resurrection is linked with the apostolic commission: “Paul, an apostle not from human beings nor through a human being, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead” (Gal 1:1). Matthew has the Risen Christ commissioning his disciples for their apostolic mission. “Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations” (Mt 28:18-l9). These texts show how Jesus’ Resurrection directly affected the first apostolic mission, creating the daily life and practice of the first Christian communities.

637.     But the Resurrection kerygma is perhaps most important for grounding the Christian Faith. For the Risen Christ not only crowns God’s Self-revelation in history. He also illumines all of creation as its cosmic Lord, in whom “everything in heaven and on earth was created . . . all were created through him and for him” (Col 1:16). This is the basis for the genuine universality of Christian Faith. Through Christ’s Resurrection, a real transformation of creation was effected by God.

638.     We see some indication of this in Christian moral praxis and spirituality. Both rest firmly on the Risen Christ’s actual presence in the world. Without the Resurrection, Christians might simply relate to the historical Jesus as one religious leader among many. Or they might relate to the Risen Lord like the transcendent God, leaving behind the historical “Jesus story.” But the mystery of the Risen Christ unites inseparably the exalted Lord with the crucified “Man-for-others” in a way that makes the earthly life of Jesus eternally valid and operative in our history today.

639.     One particular phrase in the Easter kerygma is specially significant: on the third day(1 Cor 15:4; Acts 10:40). Throughout the Old Testament the “third day” signified a special point in salvation history, not merely numerical time. Moses told the people: “be ready on the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai” (Ex 19:11). Hosea prophesied: “He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence” (Hos 6:2). In the New Testament, Jesus used the phrase in predictions of his Passion, in invoking the sign of Jonah (cf. Mt 12:40), and in offering the Jews a sign of his authority to cleanse the temple: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19).

B.    The Resurrection as Jesus’ Presence

640.     In his discourse to Cornelius’ household, Peter describes the appearances of the Risen Christ (cf. CCC 641-43). “They killed Jesus, hanging him on a tree, only to have God raise him up on the third day and grant that he be seen, not by all, but only by such witnesses as had been chosen beforehand by God __ by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:40-41).
       Unlike the Old Testament prophets’ experience of hearing God’s word, the disciples’ encounter with the Risen Christ is constantly described in terms of seeing, sometimes even with “touching.” The women “embraced” the feet of Jesus (cf. Mt 28:9). To his disciples who thought he was a ghost, the Risen Christ said: “Look at my hands and my feet; it is really I. Touch me and see that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as I do” (Lk 24:39). To the doubting Thomas Jesus said: “Take your finger and examine my hands. Put your hand into my side” (Jn 20:27).

641.     These appearances of the Risen Christ have three significant characteristics. First, they were different from visions totally within history since the Risen Christ showed himself as transcending the ordinary limits of time and space. Second, except for Paul, the Risen Christ appeared only to those who could identify him with the earthly, historical Jesus. These thus became the once-and-for-all original witnesses founding the Church. The Apostolic Age closed with their passing; from then on, Christians are those “who have not seen and have believed” (Jn 20:29).

642.     Third, and most importantly, the appearances did not remove all doubts nor the need for faith (cf. CCC 644). Some doubted that the one who appeared was really Jesus of Nazareth, others that he was the Christ. A real change of heart, a conversion, was needed to “see” the Risen Christ as the apostle Thomas and the Emmaus disciples clearly show (cf. Jn 20:27; Lk 24:13-35). Matthew describes how “those who had entertained doubts fell down in homage” (Mt 28:17). This confirms the fact that faith is truly a gift. “No one can say: ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12: 3). St. Thomas Aquinas explains that “the apostles saw the living Christ after his Resurrection with the eyes of faith” (ST, III: 55, 2 ad 1m).

643.     But the presence of the Risen Jesus was not confined to his appearances. Rather, Christ’s active presence was intensely felt by the early community, and linked with life in the Spirit. “We ourselves, although we have the Spirit as firstfruits, groan inwardly while we await the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23). Jesus’ presence was especially felt in three areas, corresponding to our present “Doctrine,” “Morals,” and “Worship.” First, as source of the teaching and authority of the Christian community’s leaders. Second, in the moral exhortations of the Pauline epistles. And third, in the community worship, especially Baptism and the Eucharist.

       Teaching

644.     The Risen Christ commissioned his disciples: You are to “teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you” (Mt 28:20). Jesus and the Father abide in anyone who is “true to my word. . . . We will come to him and make our dwelling place with him” (Jn 14:23). This abiding presence is effected through the Holy Spirit who “will instruct you in everything, and remind you of all that I told you” (Jn 14:26). For the Spirit “bears witness” to the Risen Christ (cf. Jn 15:26). He “will guide you to all truth. . . announce to you the things that are to come. In doing this he will give glory to me because he will have received from me what he will announce to you” (Jn 16:13-14).

       Pauline Moral Exhortation

645.     The Risen Christ’s Paschal pattern of new life through death determines the shape of all Christian life in the Spirit. Christ’s Resurrection makes spiritually present He to whom every Christian belongs. So Paul writes: “Continually we carry about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, so that in our bodies the life of Jesus may also be revealed” (2 Cor 4:10). He exhorts his Corinthian converts: “Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us celebrate the feast not with the old yeast of corruption and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5:7-8).

       Liturgical Worship

646.     The Risen Christ’s presence was experienced perhaps most clearly in the sacramental worship of the Christian community. First, “in baptism you were not only buried with him but also raised to new life with him because you believed in the power of God who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12). The Eucharist, for Paul, makes present Christ’s Paschal Mystery: “Every time, then, you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26). John stresses the notion of abiding presence through the Eucharist: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him” (Jn 6:56).

C.   The Resurrection and the Empty Tomb

647.     By itself, the tradition of the “empty tomb” does not prove anything. But when linked to the Risen Christ’s appearances, it is confirmatory of the Resurrection (cf. CCC 640). More important, perhaps, is what the empty tomb indicates about the nature of our salvation. For the corpse of Jesus was a symbol of the ultimate human sin, and God took that corpse and made of it the beginning of the new creation. Redemption in the Catholic sense, then, is not escaping from this sinful world, but transforming it with all its evil and suffering. Moreover, respect for material creation, against all forms of spiritualism, is once again affirmed. As He had done in creation and at the Incarnation, God once again enhances matter by raising Christ from the dead.
       PCP II strongly supports this respect for material creation in its appeal for “a passionate care of our earth and our environment” to preserve the “integrity of God’s creation” (PCP II 79, 321-24).

III. CHRIST’S ASCENSION

648.     But the “raising” of Christ did not stop with his Resurrection from the dead. An integral part of Christ’s Paschal Mystery is his Ascension. The Risen Jesus told Mary Magdalene: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17; cf. CCC 659-60). John’s Gospel neatly unifies all dimensions of Christ’s Paschal Mystery (Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension) by Jesus’ assertion of being “lifted up” (cf. Jn 3:14; 8:28; 12:32-33). These correspond to the predictions of the Passion, Death and Resurrection in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g., Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34).
       The predictions of both the Passion and “being lifted up” have two things in common. They speak of 1) the Son of Man,” and 2) the divine imperative. “So must the Son of Man be lifted up” (Jn 3:143). And “The Son of Man had to suffer much. . . be put to death, and rise three days later” (Mk 8:31).

649. The primary meaning of being raised or “lifted up” is Christ’s exaltation, sovereign authority and power over creation and all history (cf. CCC 668-70). This recalls a “Suffering Servant” prophecy of Isaiah: “See, my Servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted(Is 52:13). It also appears in two of Peter’s discourses in Acts expressing both Resurrection and Ascension. “The God of our fathers has raised up Jesus whom you put to death, hanging him on a tree. He whom God has exalted at His right hand as Ruler and Savior to bring repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30-31). Referring “lifted up” also to Christ’s Ascension to the Father, then, helps explain: “When you lift up the Son of Man, you will come to realize that I AM” (Jn 8:28). “I AM” was the name God revealed to Moses in Ex 3:14, which John’s Gospel uses to bring out the divinity of Jesus.

650.     But the Ascension is also a saving event for us. Christ’s return to the Father was necessary for sending the Spirit: “It is much better for you that I go. . . . If I go, I will send the Paraclete to you” (Jn 16:7). Jesus’ Ascension to his Father did not separate him from the world. Rather, it made him even more present to his disciples.

The Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took his seat at God’s right hand. The Eleven went forth and preached everywhere. The Lord continued to work with them throughout, and to confirm the message through the signs which accompanied them” (Mk 16:19-20).

Paul also stresses this same active presence of “Christ Jesus who died or rather was raised up, who is at the right hand of God and who intercedes for us” (Rom 8:34).

651.     Christ’s Ascension, then, brings out a number of basic truths of our Christian Faith. First, the Ascension marks Jesus’ exaltation into the heavenly realm of his Father. Second, it does not separate Christ from us because as he promised, from heaven he “draws everyone to himself” (Jn 12:32). Third, since “he lives forever to make intercession,” Christ continues to exercise his priesthood since he entered “heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf” (Heb 7:25; 9:24). Finally, the ascended Christ as Head of the Church gives us, members of his Body, the hope of one day entering into glory with him (cf. CCC 661-67).

652.     The Preface of the Ascension summarizes these truths neatly as it proclaims:

Christ, the Mediator between God and man,
Judge of the world and Lord of all,
has passed beyond our sight,
not to abandon us but to be our hope.
Christ is the beginning, the head of the Church;
where he has gone, we hope to follow.

IV. CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN

653. We are aware of the living presence of the Risen Christ among us in the Holy Spirit sent among us. But we also know from the Creed that he “will come again to judge the living and the dead” (cf. CCC 687-82). In the first eucharistic acclamation we proclaim: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!” “Parousia,” meaning “coming” or “presence,” is the traditional term for Christ’s Second Coming as divine Judge (cf. Mt 24:3, 27, 37, 39; 1 Cor 15:23; etc.). “The Son of Man will come with his Father’s glory accompanied by his angels. When he does, he will repay each man according to his conduct” (Mt 16:27-28).

654.     In the early days Christians prayed for this coming of Christ their Savior: “O Lord, come! Marana tha!” (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20). But gradually this longing for their forgiving Savior gave way to gnawing consciousness of individual sinfulness and infidelity. The attitude of longing for the Lord was replaced by something akin to the Old Testament prophetic warnings. The “Day of the Lord” was pictured as a “Day of Judgment,” a Dies Irae (Day of God’s Wrath). In recent times there has been a renewal of the New Testament stress on Christ’s “saving presence,” and his Second Coming as introducing the final completion not just of the individuals but of the whole world. The final destiny of the human race is ultimately in God’s hands.

655.     But confusion often arises today, partly due to the exaggerated interpretations of the final day by some fundamentalist sects. They overemphasize and interpret in literal fashion the poetic, apocalyptic descriptions of the end of the world given in the Bible, especially in Daniel and the book of Revelation. Biblical literature of this type has to be read in terms of its typical characteristics.
 First, while seemingly a revelation of the future, apocalyptic texts actually are usually a commentary on their own times. Second, the revelation is generally presented in a vision or dream, in which allegorical language and complicated symbolism are used. Third, the texts attempt by such means to portray the final end of world history and the fearful destruction of all the evil forces in the world.

656.     Given such qualities of biblical apocalyptic literature, it is more important for us, Filipino Catholics, to focus on the basic truths of the Parousia. The first is that the Risen Christ as the Son of Man will “come to judge the living and the dead” (2 Tim 4:1). “The Lord himself will come down from heaven at the word of command, at the sound of the archangel’s voice and God’s trumphet; and those who have died in Christ will rise first” (1 Thes 4:16).
       Second, Christ’s Second Coming will be unmistakable since it will be accompanied by unprecedented signs in the heavens and on the earth. “As the lightning from the East flashes to the West, so will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Mt 24:27).

657. Third, regarding when the parousia will take place, the Gospel is very clear. “As for the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only” (Mt 24:36). Therefore, fourth, because it will come unexpectedly, “like a thief in the night” (1 Thes 5:2), we must “be constantly on the watch! Stay awake! You do not know when the appointed time will come” (Mk 13:33).

658. Lastly, because Christ is already in his glory, and has sent his Spirit among us, the “time” of salvation has already come. Now is the time when our salvation is being worked out in our daily acts with our neighbors. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory,” he will judge our acts according to one norm: “As often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me” (Mt 25:31, 40).



 


INTEGRATION



659. The doctrine of Christ’s Resurrection and Second Coming constitutes a central part in our understanding who Jesus Christ IS. Without much speculative reasoning, the ordinary Catholic Filipino instinctively senses that Christ as Risen Savior and as Judge must be true God and true man in some way. He is both one of us, able “to sympathize with our weakness” (Heb 4:15), and yet capable of taking “away the sin of the world,” and given “the power to pass judgment” on it (Jn 1:29; 5:27). As risen from the dead, Christ is present and operative in our human history, the “Head” of the Christian communities, the Church.

660.     Christian morality rests precisely on the presence of the Risen Christ among us today, through the Spirit he has sent into our hearts. For the living Risen Christ is not merely some external “model” of 2,000 years ago, proposed for our imitation. He is, rather, a personal presence through his living biblical Word, and in active grace-filled power within us. The Risen Christ’s presence, both personal and com-munitarian, in Filipino Catholics, is the abiding source of our authentic Christian moral discernment and strength for our daily living out our Christian Faith.

661.     Christian worship depends for its validity on the Resurrection, for if Jesus be not risen, he cannot mediate for us before the Father, nor be experienced in his Sacraments. The reality of the Resurrection was brought home sharply to the early Christians precisely in their experience of him in their worship. Today, in the active liturgies of thriving parishes and BECs, we Filipino Catholics share the same experience. We come to recognize him “in the breaking of bread” (Lk 24:35).




 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS



662.   Why is it so important to believe in Christ’s Resurrection?
       Because the Risen Christ is the key to our salvation and all authentic knowledge of God. If Christ is not risen, our faith is worthless (cf. 1 Cor 15:17).

663.   What is the meaning and salvific importance of Christ’s Resurrection?
       Christ’s resurrection is not simply a “fact” of information, but rather, together with the Incarnation, the most significant event of the Christian Faith. It
   confirmed all Christ had done and taught during his public ministry;
   fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies;
   confirmed Jesus as the “only Son of the Father”;
   enabled Christ to share his new life with us as adopted sons and daughters of the Father; and
   will be the principle and source of our resurrection.

664.   What is the challenge surrounding the Resurrection?
       The challenge today is not in accepting Christ’s Resurrection, but in living out the Gospel of the Risen Christ.

665.   Does the Resurrection “prove” the Gospel message?
       Christ’s Resurrection is not only the proof of the Gospel message. It is the central Gospel message itself.

666.   What does “Jesus Christ rose from the dead” mean?
       It means that:
   Jesus passed from death to
   a new, definitive glorified life,
   effected by the Blessed Trinity, and
   is now the source of that new life for all.

667.   How does the New Testament witness to Christ’s Resurrection?
       The New Testament testifies to Christ’s Resurrection in four ways, namely, in its:
   Easter proclamation and apostolic mandate;
    descriptions of the Risen Christ’s appearances to his disciples;
   narrative of the tradition of the empty tomb; and
   account of the early Christian community’s experience of the Risen Christ’s presence in the Holy Spirit.

668.   What is an example of the early kerygma?
       In the First Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul wrote: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; . . . he was buried and rose from the dead on the third day, . . . he was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve” (1 Cor 15:3-5).

669.   How did the Risen Christ show his presence in the world?
       The Risen Christ was seen by his disciples, but especially experienced through the teaching, the moral exhortation, and in the liturgical worship of the early Christian communities.

670.   What does the “Ascension” mean?

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