God has made him both Lord and Christ
The Theology of the Resurrection
Before the ressourcement of Biblical and Patristic theology done in this last century, the Resurrection tended to occupy a minor place in dogmatic theology, particularly concerning the theology of the redemption, in which it played little part. The Resurrection mostly remained a point for apologetics, demonstrating that Christ in his personal subsistence was truly divine and so, in his human nature, had to rise from the dead, or that he had overcome his enemies, being vindicated by Divine Justice, or that the passion and death he suffered had passed and now would suffer and die no more.
But what did the Resurrection have to do with our salvation? It was by his death on the cross that Christ made satisfaction for the punishment we incurred because of sin and effected the reconciliation we have received by his grace, recipients of the justification he merited for us in his passion and death. The work has been done; and now, if we remain in a state of grace and persevere in good works, we shall one day depart this passing life and enter into that heavenly life where we shall see the face of God forever.
What is missing in that simplistic account is what is most important in our understanding of the redemption: Christ overcame the reign of sin and death by his loving obedience to the Father’s will, accomplishing in his human nature what we in our first parents had failed to do in the beginning, thereby making a new beginning as the New Adam and New Israel, a beginning that is consummated in the recapitulation of his life in ours, the summing up of all things in him, as creation exchanges its corrupt capstone for this new foundation, the faithful sonship of Jesus, in whom and for whom all things were made (thereby achieving a restoration or redemption, rather than a replacement or substitution). His accomplishment is not just taking on our punishment but assuming our very nature and existence, for what needed to be changed was not just our moral debt but also, and even more importantly, our nature. Now united to his divine existence as Son, his human life becomes the instrument of our sanctification as our human lives are mystically united to his life, progressively (that is, not all at once, but in each of us, over the course of a lifetime, and in the whole Body of the Church, over the course of history) sharing in what he did and how he did it, as the perfect Son, until that Whole Christ, head and members, is brought to perfect holiness, as the complete New Man, that Son brought to full stature to whom all creation is subject so that all creation in Him may be subjected to the Father and God may be all in all.
It is not some arbitrary rule of justice that explains our salvation, but the benevolent will of the Father in his love for the Son and his love for us (in whose image and for whose glory we were made), the love that is the Holy Spirit, the love that explains why the Father sent his Son for us as he did, by the Spirit preparing a body for him in whom God would tabernacle among us, and by the Spirit anointing him Messiah, the New Israel who would bring about God’s reign by his own faithful trust in and obedience to the Father, who glorified him when he was raised up by giving him the glory he had with him before creation, who did not abandon his Son but rescued him from death by raising him in the Spirit, bringing an end to the will and logic of sin that dominated creation through the demonic prince of this world by establishing his Son instead in his sanctified humanity as Lord and Christ of all creation, a Life-Giving Spirit, what Adam was called to be in the beginning.
In the First Reading today, in his inaugural sermon, St. Peter says to his fellow Jews: “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” This is not a crypto-adoptionism, proof that Jesus was not fully God but a man who was somehow assumed into the Godhead: rather, it is the confession of faith that God had fulfilled his promise by sending his own Son to transform Israel as he promised, by making him a share in his own rule:
Psalm 2
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord has them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“I have set my king
on Zion, my holy hill.”I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, “You are my son,
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
Psalm 110
The Lord says to my lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
till I make your enemies your footstool.”The Lord sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your foes!
Your people will offer themselves freely
on the day you lead your host
upon the holy mountains.
From the womb of the morning
like dew your youth will come to you.
The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest for ever
after the order of Melchiz′edek.”
The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
He will execute judgment among the nations,
filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs
over the wide earth.
He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.
Therefore, the Resurrection is everything! It is both the accomplishment of our ransom from sin and death and the restoration and elevation of our nature unto its original destiny of divine sonship.
This is why Jesus can call himself “the Resurrection and the Life” (Jn 11:25), projecting that event unto the Last Day (cf. Jn 5:25: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”)
The plan of God is accomplished by its sharing in the Resurrection. At the same time, there is no sharing in the Resurrection without sharing in the life he laid down in order to take up again, as Jesus made very clear.
What is the Gospel, the Good News? “[God’s] Son, descended from David according to the flesh, designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, [is] our Lord.” (Rom 1:3-4) And so we can say: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
Therefore, the Resurrection expresses the entire action of the Father toward the Son for us, the divine begetting of Christ in his full Sonship as the Alpha and Omega, the principle and end of all creation, which now and forever shares in the form of the Passion, both descent and ascent, kenosis and exaltation. In this sense, we say that Christ “has been made perfect” (Heb 5:9) and so has become “the source of eternal salvation” for all those who believe in him.
The Readings of the Octave, however, are still in media res: unlike us, the disciples have not yet received the fullness of the Spirit are in the throes of first recognizing the truth of what they will soon fully believe.
Today’s Gospel is one of the most touching episodes in all the Gospels. Mary Magdalene expresses that longing that all those who have sought to know Jesus have felt, at times: “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” The Lord’s response to her profound love seems cold, if not cruel: “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Compare Jesus’ unwillingness to be touched by Mary to his concession to be probed by Thomas the Apostle!
But this is not some latent chauvinism (ridiculous to even suggest, I know). Rather, it shows that Mary is already far ahead of Thomas and ready for greater gifts. This is the great paradox of the presence of the risen Christ: he ascends not to distance himself from us but to come even closer. It is Thomas who is rebuked (“Blessed are those who have not seen and believe”), not Mary. It is Mary who is instructed, not rebuked. The Lord understands her desire to “take him,” but he wants to offer her something so much greater than just the presence of his body: by his Ascension, he will give her his very Spirit living within her, so that she can live where he is, in that heavenly life of communion with the Father in the Spirit. Again, it is the Resurrection that is both the purpose and instrument of that union, that mystery that sums up everything about Christ’s mission, the mystery which we contemplate in these days.
Yesterday I shared Msgr. Charles Pope’s harmony of the Resurrection Appearances. Today I’d like to share his response to some common questions about the discrepancies in those accounts:
How many women went out to the tomb that morning, one (John 20:21), two (Matt 28:1) or three (Mk 16:1) and how many angels were there, one (Mk 16:5, Mat 28:2) or two (Lk 24:4, Jn 20:12)? One solution here is to recall that neither John’s Gospel nor Matthew’s absolutely deny that three women went to the tomb that day. They simply do not mention three whereas Mark does. John especially wishes to focus on Mary Magdalene and may have found it unnecessary to mention the others. Additionally, Matthew and Mark’s mention of one angel need not be seen as an absolute denial that there were two as described in Luke and John. Another solution is simply to acknowledge the discrepancies in the accounts but underscore the fact that the number of women and the number of angels is not the central point. The point is that the tomb was discovered empty by one or several women and they were instructed to tell the apostles what they saw and heard.
Matthew (28:8) and Luke (24:9) indicate that the women went and told the disciples of the empty tomb but Mark (16:8) says they were afraid and said nothing. True but in the verses that follow in the appendix to Mark’s own Gospel (Mk. 16:10) Mary Magdalene does in fact tell the apostles. Rather than conflicting with the other texts, Mark may merely supply additional detail about the startled nature of the women, that at first they were startled and said nothing but soon after went on, as Mark in fact says, a did tell the apostles.
Mark (16:7) and Matthew (28:9) indicate, according to the angel’s instructions, that Jesus would see them in Galilee but Luke (24:36 and John 20) describe the first appearances in Jerusalem. In addressing this difference we must recall that the gospels are not written as chronological or complete histories. The evangelists selected events from among the many things Jesus said and did and may also have altered the order. John (20:30 & 21:25) explicitly states that his account is selective. Hence we ought not conclude that any one gospel completely details all the resurrection appearances. It is true Mark and Matthew speak only of appearances in Galilee. Thus these accounts might only include the angelic instructions to go to Galilee since that they did not intend to describe appearances elsewhere. In other words it is possible to speculate that the angelic instructions were more elaborate and included instructions as to being prepared to meet Jesus first in Jerusalem. Matthew and Mark however paired these details down in their accounts since they did not intend to include the Jerusalem appearances in their accounts. This may not satisfy our notions of historical accounts wherein we expect and want a complete accounting of all the details. But, as has already been noted the Scriptures simply do not record history in this way. Rather they are selective accounts that open windows on history but do not claim to exhaustively report it. Note also that Matthew and Mark are not clear as to the time frame of the appearances they describe. Luke and John however, set the first appearance in Jerusalem and are rather clear that the day is the same day as the resurrection. Hence we reasonably conclude that the first appearances took place in Jerusalem and later appearances took place in Galilee. In other words the Jerusalem appearances do not conflict with the Galilean appearances in any way. Rather they simply add details that Mark and Matthew, for reasons of their own, chose not to include. Such a conclusion is speculative to be sure. It does, however, help us to see that the accounts do not absolutely contradict each other.
Among the Apostles, did Jesus appear to Peter first (Lk 24:34), all eleven at once (Mt. 28:16), or the eleven minus Thomas (Jn 20:24)? There seems to be a good case for the fact that the Lord appeared first to Peter even though we do not have a direct account of this appearance in the scriptures. The Gospel of Luke makes mention of it, And they [the disciples traveling to Emmaus] rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, who said, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”(24:33-34). Paul also records it [The Lord] was raised the third day in accordance with the scriptures…he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time…Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles (1 Cor 15:3ff). So it seems a pretty good case can be made that Peter did see the risen Lord before the other apostles. This quote from Paul also helps us recall that the gospel accounts are selective in terms of which resurrection appearances they report. Thus, as we read the various accounts, we get from each of them only a part of the full picture (see John 20:30). According to Paul there were appearances to Peter, to five hundred disciples, and to James. The details of these appearances are left to our imagination. It also follows that we do not need to see the accounts of John and Matthew cited above as conflicting. They may well be describing different appearances.
Did Jesus appear to them in a room (Jn 20:19) or a mountaintop (Mt 28:16)? Again, we need not place these texts at odds with one another. Most likely they are describing different appearances. Since the time frame of John is clear that the appearances in the upper room took place on Resurrection Sunday and then a week later we can presume that these appearances took place first. The mountaintop appearance was in Galilee and the time frame is not clear. It may have been days or weeks later.
Did Jesus ascend on Easter Sunday (Lk 24:50-53; Mk 16:19) or forty days later (Acts 1:3,9)? At first glance the texts from Luke and Mark do seem to imply that the ascension was the same day as the resurrection. However, a closer look will show that they are rather vague as to the time frame. Mark begins the passage leading up to the ascension with the word “afterward.” How long after the previous appearance is uncertain. Luke’s passage is also vague regarding the time. However Acts (1:3,9) also written by Luke is quite specific that the time of the ascension was forty days later. Thus, Acts need not be seen to conflict with the gospel accounts; it merely supplies the details that are lacking in them. This case is made stronger when we note that Luke is generally accepted to be the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles and it seems unlikely that Luke would directly contradict himself.