Wednesday within the Octave of Easter
March 30, 2016 8:30am
Readings: Acts
3.1-10
Luke
24.13-35
Sometimes it has struck me as
strange that these two disciples in today’s gospel say that “The Lord has truly been raised.”
Usually I speak, maybe we speak
of Jesus as “rising from the dead.”
It is the active voice.
This way of describing the resurrection
in effect shows Jesus as in control of the situation and rising by his own
power.
After all, we believe that Jesus
is the Son of God, that he is God and is divine and so he could rise by his own
power.
So, why the expression: “The Lord has truly been raised.”
What is going on here?
One of our Catholic commentators
says this.
If we speak of Jesus as “rising from the dead,” we in effect set
Jesus’ suffering and passion apart from our own pain, suffering, and death.
We posit Jesus as completely in
control.
But in our pain, suffering, and
death, we are powerless and not in control.
So, when the Scriptures so
carefully speak of Jesus being “raised”
by the Father, they are not denying Jesus’ real identity or his real power.
Instead, what the Scriptures are
conveying is that Jesus identified with us so fully and he so completely
assumed our humanity that even he felt powerless and afraid when he was
confronting pain and suffering.
Even Jesus, instead of relying on
his own inner resources, trusted in the power of the Father to be with him
through it all and to raise him up.
So these expressions, like “The Lord has truly been raised” – these
expressions convey Jesus’ complete solidarity with us in our powerlessness over
pain, suffering, and death.
And they convey Jesus’ invitation
to do what he did:
To entrust ourselves to the love
of God to sustain us and to the power of God to raise us up to life eternal.
