Lent, A real historical event

The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical event 

Thus it is fundamental to our Christian faith and witness to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as a real historical event testified to by many authoritative witnesses. We strongly affirm this because, even in our times, there is no lack of those who deny its historicity, reducing the Gospel account to a myth, to a "vision" of the Apostles, taking up again and presenting old worn-out theories as new and scientific. Certainly for Jesus the resurrection was not a mere return to the former life. In this case, in fact, it would be a thing of the past: 2,000 years ago someone rose from the dead, returned to his old life, just as Lazarus did, for example. The resurrection is oriented in another direction; it is the passage to a dimension of life that is profoundly new, that also implicates us, that involves the whole of the human family, of history and of the universe.

This event that introduced a new dimension of life, an openness of our world to eternal life, changed the existence of the eyewitnesses as the evangelical accounts and the other New Testament writings demonstrate; it is an announcement that entire generations of men and women through the centuries welcomed with faith and often bore witness to at the price of their blood, knowing that precisely in this way they entered into this new dimension of life. This year too, at Easter there resounds unchanged and always new, in every corner of the earth, this good news: Jesus, who has died on the cross and been resurrected, lives in glory because he has defeated the power of death, he has brought human beings into a new communion of life with and in God. This is the victory of Easter, our salvation! And so we can sing with St. Augustine: "Christ's resurrection is our hope," because he leads us into a new future.

It is true: Jesus' resurrection founds our certain hope and illuminates the whole of our earthly pilgrimage, including the human enigma of pain and death. The faith in Christ crucified and risen is the heart of the whole evangelical message, the central nucleus of our "credo." Of such an essential "credo" we can find an authoritative expression in a famous passage in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (15:3-8), where the Apostle, responding to some of the members of the community at Corinth who paradoxically proclaimed Jesus' resurrection but denied that of the dead -- our hope -- faithfully transmits that which he -- Paul -- had received from the first apostolic community about the death and resurrection of the Lord.

He begins with an almost parenthetical remark: "Now I am reminding you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand. Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain!" (15:1-2). He immediately adds that he has passed on to them what he himself had received. Then the pericope follows that we listened to at the beginning of our meeting. St. Paul first of all presents the death of Jesus and then, in a very simple text, makes two additions to the news that "Christ died." The first addition is: he died "for our sins"; the second is: "according to the Scriptures" (15:3). This expression, "according to the Scriptures," puts the event of the Lord's death in relation to the history of the Old Testament covenant of God with his people, and he makes us understand that the death of the Son of God belongs to the fabric of the history of salvation, and indeed makes us understand that this history receives its logic and meaning from this death.

The Apostle pauses over the Lord's resurrection. He says that Christ "rose on the third day according to the Scriptures." Again: "according to the Scriptures!" Not a few exegetes see in the expression "[he] rose on the third day according to the Scriptures" a significant reference to Psalm 16, where the Psalmist proclaims: "You will not abandon me in the netherworld, nor let his faithful one undergo corruption" (16:10). This is one of the texts of the Old Testament that was cited by early Christians to prove Jesus' messianic character. Since, according to the understanding of Judaism, corruption began after the third day, the word of Scripture is fulfilled in Jesus who rises on the third day, that is, before corruption set in. 

Dear brothers and sisters, let us allow ourselves to be enlightened by the splendor of the risen Lord. Let us welcome him with faith and adhere generously to his Gospel, as did the first privileged witnesses of the resurrection; as St. Paul did, some years later, encountering the divine Master in an extraordinary way on the road to Damascus. We cannot just hold onto the proclamation of this truth -- which changes the life of everyone -- only for ourselves. 

And with humble confidence let us pray: "Rejoice, my soul. It is always Easter, because the risen Christ is our resurrection!" 

Once again, a happy Easter to all of you!