Jun 22 Mon
Was the resurrection of our Lord real or illusory?
In the Upper Room, what the apostles saw was so extraordinary that they felt they could not trust their own eyes. It was the same Jesus as always, the man whom they had followed since Galilee, and who now had shown them his wounds from the crucifixion. “It is I myself,” He repeated with a smile on his face. “Handle me and see.” He was telling them He was not a ghost. It was as if He was saying, “It is me, the same as always, your Master.”
Given all these testimonies, Christ's resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order, and must be acknowledged as a historical fact.
The disciples' faith was drastically tested by the Master's Passion and Death on the Cross, which He had foretold. The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that at least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the Resurrection.
Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with demoralized disciples, looking sad and frightened, for they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb, and had regarded their words as an idle tale.
When Jesus revealed Himself to the eleven on Easter evening, He upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw Him after He had risen.
It was Jesus, but with a body now glorified. The resurrection of the Lord was not a return to life, as happened with Lazarus or the son of the widow of Nain. Now Jesus had the fullness of human life, freed from the limitations of time and space. So, He could enter the house where the doors were shut.
Jesus was no longer subject to physical laws, yet He had a human body that could be recognized by sight and touch. The Lord made a point of ensuring that everyone would recognize him as a real, visible person who spoke to them.
His body was the same as the body in the tomb and the body that hung on the cross. He asked, “Have you anything here to eat?” He did this because spirits do not eat. It was evident that the risen Jesus had no need to eat, but that He really could eat.
The disciples did not have bountiful provisions, but they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them.
Peter would later claim this as another proof of the truth of the resurrection when speaking to the centurion Cornelius, telling him how they ate and drank with Jesus after He rose from the dead. They saw Jesus and Jesus saw them, and they perceived one another with all their human senses.
Jesus was not there before them in a static way as He is sometimes portrayed in paintings. On the contrary, He moved, talked, the sweep of his gaze took them all in, and He occupied space among them in a completely easy and natural way. Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He showed them that it was necessary that in Him all that had been written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms be fulfilled.
Excerpts from Francisco Fernandez-Carvajal