Fr. Alex Roman
Reflection on Easter Sunday
Brothers and Sisters, Easter is an explosive feast and an explosive reality. Let me get at it this way: Let’s go back to Jesus’ time. In first century Judaism there were lots of views about what happened to people when they died. So, for example, there were many Jews relying on a venerable tradition that would say: The dead are just dead, you die and that’s it, you go into the ground. Others said that the dead go down to shadowy shale, like a sort of underworld.
Others said that the souls of the just are in the hand of God. It’s a bit like a Hellenistic or Greek view, that the soul escapes from the body. Still others would hold that the righteous dead at the end of time would rise together. Think of Martha in the Lazarus story, when she says: I know he will rise with the resurrection of the just. That’s what she’s was talking about. So there were all kinds of views about what happens when someone dies. But here is the point of Easter: none of those familiar frameworks of understanding is used by any gospel writers. These are all Jews or people very much under influence of Judaism, and they don’t use any of those frameworks when talking about what happened to Jesus. About Jesus they don’t say: He went down to shadowy shale. They don’t say: His soul escaped from his body. They don’t say: Oh, he was such a righteous man that one day he will rise with the righteous dead. WHAT THEY SAY is that this Jesus, this Yeshua from Nazareth whom they knew, whom they touched, and heard and looked upon, this friend of theirs, Yeshua from Nazareth… who had been brutally put to death by the Romans, - and mind you, Romans were good at putting people to death! This was a specialty of theirs, they didn’t make mistakes or fool around… WHAT THEY SAY is this Jesus who they knew had been put to death and buried, WAS ALIVE again through the power of God. That’s the resurrection message.
If I can put it in some relation to the old frameworks, you might say what they expected of all the righteous dead at the end of time happened. But for this Jesus the novelty of the resurrection message is NOW, not at the end of time. This is what gives power and fire to the New Testament. The writers of the New Testament are not trading in bland spiritual generalities, they are not trading in spiritual lessons and symbolic visions. They are talking about an event that was so overwhelming that it changed everything. So they wanted the whole world to know about it.
Bishop Barron.
Reflection on Easter Sunday
Brothers and Sisters, Easter is an explosive feast and an explosive reality. Let me get at it this way: Let’s go back to Jesus’ time. In first century Judaism there were lots of views about what happened to people when they died. So, for example, there were many Jews relying on a venerable tradition that would say: The dead are just dead, you die and that’s it, you go into the ground. Others said that the dead go down to shadowy shale, like a sort of underworld.
Others said that the souls of the just are in the hand of God. It’s a bit like a Hellenistic or Greek view, that the soul escapes from the body. Still others would hold that the righteous dead at the end of time would rise together. Think of Martha in the Lazarus story, when she says: I know he will rise with the resurrection of the just. That’s what she’s was talking about. So there were all kinds of views about what happens when someone dies. But here is the point of Easter: none of those familiar frameworks of understanding is used by any gospel writers. These are all Jews or people very much under influence of Judaism, and they don’t use any of those frameworks when talking about what happened to Jesus. About Jesus they don’t say: He went down to shadowy shale. They don’t say: His soul escaped from his body. They don’t say: Oh, he was such a righteous man that one day he will rise with the righteous dead. WHAT THEY SAY is that this Jesus, this Yeshua from Nazareth whom they knew, whom they touched, and heard and looked upon, this friend of theirs, Yeshua from Nazareth… who had been brutally put to death by the Romans, - and mind you, Romans were good at putting people to death! This was a specialty of theirs, they didn’t make mistakes or fool around… WHAT THEY SAY is this Jesus who they knew had been put to death and buried, WAS ALIVE again through the power of God. That’s the resurrection message.
If I can put it in some relation to the old frameworks, you might say what they expected of all the righteous dead at the end of time happened. But for this Jesus the novelty of the resurrection message is NOW, not at the end of time. This is what gives power and fire to the New Testament. The writers of the New Testament are not trading in bland spiritual generalities, they are not trading in spiritual lessons and symbolic visions. They are talking about an event that was so overwhelming that it changed everything. So they wanted the whole world to know about it.
Bishop Barron.