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What the Resurrection is and what it isn’t BY RYAN MAYER Director of Office of Catholic Identity Formation & Assessment, Archdiocese of San Francisco
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aster is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is the central Christian claim and principal Christian celebration. It can be easy to overly sentimentalize the stark and unnerving reality of the Resurrection, reducing its significance to the spiritual or even to a metaphor about the newness of life that emerges in the spring. But without Easter, without the Resurrection, there would be no Christianity. As St. Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith … and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:13-14,17). Here are a few things to know about what the Resurrection is and what it isn’t.
THE RESURRECTION WAS NOT A RETURN TO EARTHY LIFE Jesus did not simply return to his former bodily state and way of life as did Lazarus or the widow’s son (Jn 11 & Lk 7:11-17). His resurrection body, though still a real body, and still the same body that suffered and died, is a glorified body. He was not merely raised to life again but raised to a new life. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Christ’s resurrection was not a return to earthly life, as was the case with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before Easter. … Christ’s resurrection is essentially different. … At Jesus’ resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state.” (CCC 646).
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Photo by Dennis Callahan
Stained glass depicting the Resurrection, St Paul’s Catholic Church, San Francisco.
THE RESURRECTION WAS NOT MERELY “SPIRITUAL” As we profess each Sunday in the Nicene Creed, Jesus was a real man with a real body who really died. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Christ’s death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. … To the benefit of every APRIL 2022 | CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO
