That
bleak question has ever tormented mankind, and all the prodigious efforts
to answer it through natural or psychic means have ended in failure. So
each one of us, when in the mood will reflect: "Some day soon, maybe
I will close my eyes for the last time. Then what?"
Easter serves notice that what lies on the other side of death is life.
That plain statement must not be glossed over or accepted routinely. Say
it and think it again: On the far side of death is life. Immediately we
must reject all those fanciful notions of a dream-like, ghostly
pseudo-life with which literary imagination has made us familiar. The
Christ of Easter is not a shade, but a live, breathing, speaking,
touching, acting man. He appears; but He is not an apparition.
A detail in the Gospel of St. Luke is enormously important. Then,
while [the disciples] were still doubtful, and bewildered with joy, he
asked them: Have you anything here to eat? So they put before him a piece
of roast fish, and a honeycomb; and he took these and ate in their
presence. It makes a most pertinent Easter meditation to picture the
risen, cheerful Savior removing, with fingers sticky from the honeycomb, a
small fish bone from His mouth. The life that the risen Christ
demonstrates may be and is mysterious-there is so much we will not know
about it until we have it-but it is what we understand and desire as life.
Beyond the grave is not cessation, not darkness, not nothingness, not
endless sleep, not colorless absorption into the uncaring universe, not
some illusory mock-existence, but life: actual, literal life. Says the
Lord Christ in John’s Gospel: I am the resurrection and the life.
Easter provides a further and equally deep comfort. The life that
Christ shows us after death is the life of a person: a person in alert,
happy, loving contact and union with other persons. Unquestionably, the
most agonizing pain we experience in mortal life is the loss, by death, of
those we most love. Surely also, a major factor in the stark fear of one's
own death is the terrible loneliness of it. Alone, one passes
into-aloneness? No, by no means, not at all, is the Easter answer to that
dreadful question. Again, picture the risen Christ sitting easily among
His beloved friends. In death a person painfully parts company with
persons; and emerges, the identical person (however transformed), into the
loving company of real persons: of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of all
those most dear to him who have gone before. Not idly does the liturgy
speak of believers in Christ as a familia, a family. Easter
promises a family reunion.
It is evident, lastly, that the Easter life is joyous. The risen Christ
speaks no heavy word, encounters no enemy, is lifted above all controversy
and conflict, shows no signs of tension or struggle, breathes calm and joy
and peace. That calm and joy and peace He imparts. He himself stood in
the midst of them, and said, Peace he upon you; it is myself, do not be
afraid.
Reader and friend in Christ: at another Easter time lines very like
these will be written and read, but not by you and not by me. Will we be
dead? No. We will be living, together and content--God grant it--in
Christ.
The literal resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from literal death, at
once both a fact of history and an object of faith, has a triple meaning
for those who believe in it. The resurrection of Christ means life. It
means victory. It means joy. In each instance, the significance holds
first for Christ Himself, then for sincere adherents of Christ.
Of course, the resurrection of the Savior immediately demonstrates the
reality of life after death. But such obvious inference is only the
beginning of the truth that is here contained: The resurrection may be
called the supremely divine work, because it is strictly the divinization
of man by the virtue of the spirit. It is not only a reanimation, which
would be merely a return to and a prolonging of mortal life, even if that
life were to be prolonged indefinitely. But it is the passing from one
mode of existence to another.
The resurrection of our Lord pledges to the believer ultimate entrance
into a life so rich, so radiant, so radically exalted and perfect, that it
can indeed be called-all pantheistic foolishness aside-divinization.
With cunning beyond all that is human, the tempter whispered to Eve: You
yourselves will be like gods. He lied. The risen Christ might use the
same words to us-in very truth.
Christ our Lord encountered human foes in His mortal life. He fought
them with fierce determination and devastating effect, but in the end they
prevailed. High priest Caiphas had said, shrugging his shoulders: It is
best for us if [this] one man is put to death. So Christ died the
death of the crucified, and was buried. And on the third day he rose
again. The Savior triumphed over His mortal enemies; and He never once
mentions them or bothers about them again. Christ's victory is not local
but cosmic.
What the risen Savior has conquered is evil-pure evil, cosmic evil. He
has conquered it by nullifying forever its supremely symbolic effect,
death. He has conquered it by the cleansing power of the blood He shed. It
was on the evening of the resurrection day, remember, that Christ bestowed
upon His Church for all time the divine power absolutely to forgive sin.
What Christ bested in His coming from the tomb is the leering, ape-like
reality that lurks behind all evil, that implacable fallen angel who will
not give over his plan to poison all that is good, that invisible malice
who, if he were capable of delight, would delight that so many men no
longer believe in him. The resurrection says: "Evil can be beaten.
Evil is beaten-by, in and with Christ."
Surely, then, the majestic bursting of the tomb prison on that far-off
Sunday morning must mean joy to the Christian, as it meant joy to Christ.
The Lord Christ, stout warrior that He was, did rejoice in His victory,
and His joy appears characteristically: in His quiet, gentle, gracious
serenity. It is impossible to listen to the risen Christ as He softly
calls Magdalen by name; as He says to His scared disciples: Peace be
upon you; as He asks the bumbling man who had so furiously denied Him:
Simon, son of John, do you love me?-it is impossible thus to
observe this most wondrous and wonderful Conqueror, and remain a stranger
to Christian joy. Christ is risen. All is well.
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Read other articles of spiritual
enlightenment in the April 2001 edition of