Happy Easter to you, and your family!
Today, we celebrate the most important holiday of the Church year. Yep. …Even more important than Christmas. Certainly, the birth of Christ is really important, but we wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas, if it weren’t for the foundational event that we celebrate on Easter—The fact that Jesus rose from the dead. There are many articles and videos that explain why it only makes sense that the tomb was empty and that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, but I’d like to take a moment to share the most basic assertion that underpins our belief in Jesus. Stated simply, Jesus really lived, he made many assertions about his own divinity, and we believe him because of what followed his death.
First of all, we know that Jesus really lived. Like other figures from antiquity, his actual existence isn’t really debated. Like Socrates or Plato, Jesus left his mark on history through written records and the conviction of those who had contact with him. People may disagree about who Jesus was, whether fully human and fully divine like Catholics believe, or a prophet, born of the Virgin Mary, like Muslims believe (see muslimunitycenter.org), or someone else, but all agree that he existed. For example, when Emily Soloff, the Midwest area director of the American Jewish Committee, was asked for her thoughts about Jesus, she responded: “Jesus was definitely a historical figure…a charismatic community leader who was deeply troubled by what he saw as the failures of his society and spoke eloquently about those failures in the hope of change” (as quoted on myjewishlearning.com). So, we can easily assert that Jesus lived. As mentioned, the understanding of who he really was is where opinions differ. For Catholics, we choose to go to the source, the words of Jesus, for our answer.
There is an interesting article on the topic from the folks at Catholic Answers called, “Jesus Knew He Was God, and Said So.” There, they say that it wasn’t like Jesus said, “I am God,” but he did make assertions, like when he was being tried in front of the Sanhedrin: “The high priest asked him and said to him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?’ Then Jesus answered, ‘I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’ At that the high priest tore his garments and said, ‘What further need have we of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy.’” He teaches that rejection of him and his teachings will be the standard of final judgement (see Lk 9:26 and Mt 11:6). He indicates that he has equal power and efficacy with the Father (Jn 5:17), and he even says, “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30, 38). It was due to his claims about himself, and who he is that he was put to death. [There is a detailed article that features many of these quotes by Msgr. Charles Pope, “The Divinity of Jesus Christ, In Scripture and in his own words” if you want to read more.] These wild claims would just be chalked up to exaggeration or delusion were it not for one thing: Easter morning. When Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go, at dawn, to Christ’s tomb with spices to anoint his body, they find it empty. An angel tells them not to be surprised, then proclaims the central truth of the Christian message: Jesus, the crucified one, is risen! Peter and John hear the miraculous news from the women, and run to see the empty tomb themselves. Furthermore, our scriptures share ten times that Jesus appeared to his disciples in his resurrected body. We don’t know if there were more, but we do know that the impact of the sightings caused such a stir that we are still talking about them, and HIM, today! That’s enough for me! Happy Easter!