And Peter opened his mouth and said: Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him. You know the word which He sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all), the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses to all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Himon a tree; but God raised Him on the third day and made Him manifest; not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.
Acts 10:34-41
Christ is Risen!
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ under Pontius Pilate is historic fact. It happened. Historians agree. Non-believers agree. What is a matter of faith is what happened next. We believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. The whole Christian message is based on these words, that the Son of God died, and was resurrected, and because of this, when we die, we can be resurrected as well. In our statement of faith, the Creed, this is the statement that requires the most faith—to believe that Jesus Christ not only is the Son of God, but that He rose from the dead and opened the path back to Paradise for each one of us.
When we offer the greeting “Christ is Risen!” during the Paschal season, it is important to note that we use the verb “is”. We don’t say “Christ rose” but rather that “Christ is Risen!” This is because the Resurrection is not a mere triumph in history but a present reality for all Christians. We continue to live in the light of the Resurrected Christ. We place our faith in an event that has positive consequences for all people of all time, not just for the people of two thousand years ago when it happened.
We know that in the Old Testament, there are between 225 and 425 prophecies about the coming of Christ. Biblical scholars do not agree on a specific number, but even taken at the low end, there are 225 things that were prophesied to come true in one person. Jesus Christ is that person, the One whom the Scriptures talked about for centuries.
After the Resurrection, Jesus walked the earth for forty days. He appeared to His disciples and to many other people, who gave testimony to the fact that the man who was dead was now alive again. Forty days after the Resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven, meaning that He was carried up to heaven, and sat back down at the right hand of the Father, where He had been since the beginning.
In John 3:13, Jesus says “No one has ascended into heaven but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” After heavy rains, landslides often occur and debris falls over roads and closes them, so that the road in both directions is closed and deemed impassable. After the debris is cleared, the road opens in both directions again. The clean up crew would not clean one side of the road but not the other. Because of the Fall of mankind, man’s access to God, to intimately walk with the Lord in Paradise, this access was cut off, like a landslide closing both sides of the road. At the Incarnation, it was as if Jesus cleaned off one side of the road, as He passed from heaven down to earth. And at the Ascension, it was as if Jesus cleaned off the other side, the path to heaven is now full open.
Our path to Paradise actually follows the same path that Jesus took. There is a “descent” into our hearts. Yes, the Holy Spirit resides in each human soul from the moment we are conceived. But faith is not imposed. It is a choice. We have to choose Christ. We have to choose to put Him at the center, as integral to our lives as the beating of our own hearts. Once we have “accepted” Christ, it is like the Incarnation has taken place in us. The “crucifixion” is the witness we give for Christ. For some of us that might involve great suffering. And for others it is a steadfast walk of faith. For some, it might even be a brief walk, we have our conversion experience later in life. Jesus uttered His last words with faith, saying “Father, in Thy hands, I commit My spirit!” It takes real faith to utter these words. We have to get to the point where we die in complete faith, with complete surrender to the grace and mercy of God, and also to the grace and hope that comes from God. When we die as Christ did, the next event is the Resurrection, a deliverance from earthly death and an ascension into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. This is what it means to lead a life that is Christ-centered, to at all times be cognizant of how Christ opened for us the path to Paradise and to be working our way along that path through our own sense of Incarnation and Crucifixion, which will lead to Resurrection and Ascension.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth! Thou whose glory above the heavens is chanted by the mouths of babes and infants, Thou hast founded a bulwark because of Thy foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast established; what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou dost care for him? Yet Thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou has put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth! Psalm 8
The greatest test of faith is the Resurrection of Christ, not just as an event but as a present reality. We must believe in the Resurrection, and just as important, we have to live in the Resurrection.
