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2014-04-20        Daniel Daring     

  (Comments welcome here)        

The One who is ever-present

Matthew 28:1-10             

                 I would like to begin this reflection with a quote form the pagan Roman historian, Tacitus, who, at the beginning of the second century, had these words to say about Christ and his followers in connection with the disastrous fire that took place in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Nero in 64 CE. The Emperor himself was being blamed for it:  

Therefore to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. (Tacitus, Annales 15.44)

             The language is rather offensive. Christianity is “the pernicious superstition” and “the disease,” and Christians are people “loathed for their vices.” However, more interesting is the fact that “the pernicious superstition” could not be checked. How come? The mighty Roman Empire with all its power and cruelty could not protect society from the Christian "disease". Why? Perhaps, another historian, contemporary to Jesus and also a Jew, Flavius Josephus, can give us the answer:  

About this time there lived Jesus. . . . When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. . . . And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared (Josephus, Antiquities 18:63).

             We do not hear about resurrection but about affection. Their affection for Jesus made them immune to the threats and cruelty of the mighty Empire. But how were they able to sustain this affection despite being laughed at, despised, and martyred? How could they keep their love for Jesus alive in the midst of such opposition? Wasn't He just a memory? A figure of the past? Apparently not. The pernicious superstition claimed that “He has been raised” (Matthew 28:6).

            The crucifixion of Jesus is a fact, although we are unable to set its precise date (somewhere from 26 to 36 CE). The resurrection, on the other hand, is faith and an experience. It is founded on faith in the general resurrection of the dead: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised” (1 Corinthians 15:13). Thus, Jesus is not a special case, He was not granted a special privilege of being raised from the dead because He was the Son of God. No. Jesus is “the first fruit of those who have died” (1 Corinthians 15:20). But, being the Son of God, His resurrection has begun the new age, the age of the last days, signified by “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep [being] raised. . . . After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:52-53). He has paved the way for all of us. “Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). It is gone. Jesus has opened for us the way to a different life.

            But the resurrection is also the experience of Jesus' enabling and empowering presence. Faith can easily be rationalized. We may proclaim that “Jesus is alive,” and yet live as if it had no impact on our daily lives. After all, what does it mean that He is alive? What does it have to do with you and me? The proclamation seems to be hovering somewhere in the realm of ideas without coming closer to our reality. But then, “suddenly Jesus met them [the women] and said, 'Greetings!' And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him” (Matthew 28:9). I had a very similar experience in 1990. Suddenly, while reading a religious novel, I heard Jesus' voice. In a state of shock, I still remember exclaiming: “So you are alive?!” Yes. Despite having grown in a Christian environment I was surprised that what I claimed to believe in was actually true.

            The non-canonical Gospel of Thomas begins with this sentence: “These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.” The sayings were spoken, but take note that it is not just Jesus who spoke them, but “the living Jesus.” Here lies the secret of our faith. Jesus' words and actions recorded in the Gospels are of the past, but His person is of the present. And that means that He continues to speak and act today the way He spoke and acted yesterday. More so now, because He is not bound anymore by a particular period of time and a particular place.

 Our Gospel ends with Jesus telling the women: “Do not be afraid; go an tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me” (Matthew 28:10). This is yet another secret of our faith. Jesus does not go away; He goes ahead. He goes ahead of us to those places where we soon find ourselves going: our homes, workstations, missions. And that is the reason why “the pernicious superstition” cannot be checked. “The living Jesus” is the ever-present reality in the lives of His believers whether in Galilee, Rome or any other city, town, and village of the world.

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