by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace
In the past, I used to think about the Resurrection — and perhaps many of you did, too — as a very important proof about Jesus. He had claimed to be the Son of God, and so the Resurrection proves that He really is who He says He is — the Son of God, not just son of Mary and Joseph. That, of course, is an important part of the Resurrection, yet if you listen to today’s Gospel, those disciples at the beginning did not see it that way.
They were totally confused and upset, terrorized even, because they just didn’t have any sense that this was going to happen, so they couldn’t explain it. They fled from the tomb. They didn’t say anything to anybody, so at that point, they really weren’t witnesses to this truth about Jesus, that He is the Son of God. The real essence of the Resurrection, and what is so important to us, is to realize that it is not simply a proof that Jesus is the Son of God.
By the time the Gospels were written, the disciples did not need to prove in writing through the Gospels who Jesus was. They had experienced Him. They had come to know the truth of the Resurrection, that it means not just life for Jesus, going through death to new life, but it meant new life for everyone who follows Jesus. It means the gift of the risen life of Jesus for every one of us. For us to get a sense of how incredible this is, I think it’s a good thing to review a little bit about the history of God’s relationship with us down through the tens of thousands of years, from the very beginning from creation.