Christ’s Resurrection and Ours

The closest we’ll ever come to experiencing creation, as the Creator did, is to experience the re-creation of what’s already been created in new ways… like when the writer puts words on a blank page, or the pianist improvises arpeggios at the keys, or the artist finds new interpretation for the hues on the palette.

We, in some way, participate in creative endeavor, but we don’t create as God did: creating something from nothing. Even the amazing conception of a human person, whose genesis necessitates the genetic donation of his or her biological parents, is not a creation ushered forth from nothingness… but, rather, a loving gift of Creation already set in motion by the hand of God ages ago.

On the other hand, the closest we’ll ever come to experiencing resurrection, as Jesus did, will be our very own resurrections.

I find this to be the most astounding, stunning, and extraordinary reality of the Christian faith. That the person who dies will mysteriously live again… not just resuscitated, like a person who comes back from death thanks to CPR, or like Lazarus who was called out of the tomb by Jesus. (Cf. John 11:1-44.) Even though Lazarus lived again, his old body eventually died again.  No, one day, after we die, we will be truly alive in an eternal, non-stop, supernatural, transcendent, and glorified way. Thanks to the redemption won for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Resurrection from the dead is a foundational truth of Christian faith—right after the idea that God could become incarnate. What a mighty God we have!

What Jesus did first, in rising from the dead with a glorified body, we, too, will do in the joy of heaven.

We find these ideas encapsulated in the Compendium, a question and answer type of catechism, which is a concise and faithful synthesis of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Question 126: What place does the Resurrection of Christ occupy in our faith?  [See CCC 631, 638.]

The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ and represents along with his cross an essential part of the Paschal Mystery.

Question 131: What is the saving meaning of the Resurrection? [See CCC 651-655, 658.]

The Resurrection is the climax of the Incarnation. It confirms the divinity of Christ and all the things which he did and taught. It fulfills all the divine promises made for us. Furthermore the risen Christ, the conqueror of sin and death, is the principle of our justification and our Resurrection. It procures for us now the grace of filial adoption which is a real share in the life of the only begotten Son. At the end of time he will raise up our bodies.

Question 204: What is the relationship between the Resurrection of Christ and our resurrection?  [See CCC 998, 1002-1003.]

Just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and now lives forever, so he himself will raise everyone on the last day with an incorruptible body: “Those who have done good will rise to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:29).

The Church gives us fifty days of Eastertide to ponder these mysteries! You might also want to consider picking up a copy of the Compendium for your shelves, as it presents a wonderful overview of the Catechism!