The Ascension: A Good Response

Dear Parish Faithful,

We bow in worship before Thy Passion;

we honor Thy Resurrection! 

We glorify Thy glorious Ascension!

O Lord, have mercy on us! 

(stichera - Vespers of Ascension)

A Good Response

The Vesperal Liturgy yesterday evening for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord was effective, in that there were about forty members of the parish faithful present.  And just about everyone present received Holy Communion.  This resulted in a “festal” service that was only appropriate for such an awesome feast commemorating the Lord ascending in glory.  The Afterfeast will continue through this Sunday and all the way until the Leavetaking on Friday, June 1.  As we are celebrating the Ascension we are also preparing for the Pentecost – the last and great day of the paschal-pentecostal season.

The scriptural readings for Ascension are:  The Acts of the Apostles (1:1-12); and The Gospel According to St. Luke (24:36-53).  These two passages bear a close reading if you have not read them yet.  Our focus at Sunday’s Liturgy will be the account found in the Acts of the Apostles.

I would also highly recommend an article that has become a “classic” of Orthodox theology since it was written about sixty years ago, simply entitled “The Ascension of our Lord.”  This was written by the great 20th c. theologian, Fr. George Florovsky (+1979).  It first appeared in the St. Vladimir’ Seminary Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1954.  It is now posted on our parish website here.  Or, from the parish homepage you simply click on the icon of the Ascension, and scroll down to the second article posted there. This is an article that you may even want to print and study carefully.

A scriptural passage that profoundly captures the meaning for us of the Lord’s Ascension in found in the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians.  Here the Apostle incorporates the resurrection, the ascension, the Parousia (the Second Coming of Christ), together with the effect of our baptism into Christ and ultimate glorification:

If you then have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (COL. 3:1-4)

I hope that everyone has a blessed Feast Day of the Ascension!

Liturgical Fullness, the Vesperal Liturgy, and Parish Participation

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen!     
Indeed He is Risen!

As I related to the parish, our new diocesan hierarch, Bishop Matthias, issued some “directives” at our recent Clergy Convocation in Chicago, concerning some of the liturgical practices that he observed throughout the Diocese of the Midwest during the first year of his episcopacy. One of those directives was aimed at the current practice of serving a Vesperal Liturgy in the evening in celebration of a given Feast – usually one of the major Feasts of the Lord or of the Theotokos. In his assessment these Vesperal Liturgies are not a good practice, and he would like to see them eliminated – eventually. As of now, the clergy of the diocese are allowed to continue this practice until the end of the civil year (December 31), and at that point His Grace will either direct us to no longer serve the Vesperal Liturgy, or perhaps – and here I remain uncertain as to what he exactly said or meant – “re-assess” their future viability.

The Vesperal Liturgy is at times – and for certain Feasts – served in the evening of the eve of the Feast.  As an example, the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord is celebrated on August 6.  Therefore, if we served the Vesperal Liturgy, it would be scheduled for August 5; for once we conclude the Vesperal portion of the service, we have entered into August 6 liturgically, and hence the Eucharistic part of the service.  As the name indicates, this service combines the services of Vespers and the Divine Liturgy.  The services are combined in such a way, that a part of both Vespers and the Liturgy are somewhat truncated.  That, of course, is regrettable in that we do then miss some of the beautiful hymnography that poetically, theologically and prayerfully reveal the meaning of the given Feast being celebrated.  I have always been aware of this and have tried to address this issue as effectively as possible, as I will explain presently.

It is actually in Great Vespers and Matins of a given Feast that we hear the overwhelming majority of the beautiful hymnography mentioned above.  This hymnography can be found in the liturgical books known as The Festal Menaion  and The Pentecostarion.  Due to pastoral considerations of parish life, we limit ourselves to the Great Vespers of the Feast and do not serve the Matins of the Feast.  In Great Vespers this hymnography is presented to our minds and hearts primarily through the hymns known as stichera  and aposticha.  These are Greek terms basically transliterated into English – thus enriching our ecclesial vocabulary! (Every Saturday evening at Great Vespers we hear the stichera and aposticha in the given tone of the week glorifying the Savior’s resurrection from the dead in the liturgical cycle of the Lord’s Day, culminating in the Eucharistic Liturgy on Sunday morning).  In his translation of The Festal Menaion (an invaluable book that has allowed us to celebrate the Feasts in all of their hymnographic splendor since its publication in 1969), Archbishop Ware has included a glossary of terms that assist us in understanding our rich liturgical tradition in a fuller manner. Thus, he defines stichera (sing. sticheron) and aposticha in this way:

STICHERON (Gk. sticheron).  Stichera are stanzas inserted between verses (Gk. stixoi) taken from the Psalms.  They occur in particular:

(i) at Vespers, between the closing verses of Lord, I call upon Thee;
(ii) at Matins, between the concluding verses of Lauds (the Praises).

Stichera also occur at the Litia, but without verses from the Psalter.

APOSTICHA (Gk. apostixa; Slavonic, stikhiry na stikhovne).  Stichera accompanied by  verses taken from the Psalms.  Apostikha occur:

(i)  at the end of Vespers, both on feasts and on ordinary days.
(ii) at the end of Matins, on ordinary days only (i.e. on days when there is no Great Doxology).

(The Festal Menaion, p. 545-546; 558)

I would highly recommend adding The Festal Menaion to your personal libraries.  It is now published in a reasonably-priced paperback edition. Then, you could study the texts of the great Feasts in preparation of their liturgical celebration; and for the simple joy of reading and meditating on these theologically rich texts for one’s personal edification.  In addition, The Festal Menaion is introduced by two brilliant essays by Archbishop Ware and the great Orthodox theologian George Florovsky on the meaning of the Great Feasts and on liturgical prayer.  These two essays are “must” readings for the serious Orthodox Christian. 

Or, you can now go the OCA’s official website at www.oca.org and click on the link to Liturgical Texts and Music.  A further click of the appropriate date will pull up at least all of the stichera and aposticha for Great Vespers of the given Feast, together with the troparion and kontakion of the Feast and the specially-appointed antiphons for the Liturgy. In addition, the scriptural readings for the given Feast are also included. This will allow for access to the fullness of a given Feast’s liturgical hymnography on those occasions that the Vesperal Liturgy is celebrated. The splendid and powerful Feast of the Ascension of the Lord (May 24) is approaching.  All of the above-mentioned liturgical material can now be found at the OCA’s website.  What we do on the parish level is sing some of the aposticha that were missed in the truncated version of Vespers during the time of preparation for Communion.  This way, those hymns are also included for our edification.

Though certainly not a “perfect” solution for reasons briefly outlined above, I believe that the Vesperal Liturgy has proven to be on the whole an effective solution, to what I referred to earlier as pastoral considerations within the setting of our contemporary, urban Orthodox parishes.  The whole point is to allow for wider parish participation – including especially the reception of the Eucharist on the day of Feast – when that participation is precluded because of the working schedules of the vast majority of our parishioners.  We thus “sacrifice” some of the appointed liturgical material so that we are not faced with a thinly-attended Liturgy on the following morning.  That is one pastoral approach to the simple facts of our daily lives in and where we live.  Yet, this is only effective when there is clearly a far larger number of participants at the service manifesting an eagerness and willingness to enjoy the Feasts on the part of the faithful.  Otherwise, it can be argued that without that greater participation the usual cycle of Great Vespers on the eve of the Feast, and the Divine Liturgy the following morning would remain the best schedule to maintain, because of an even greater liturgical fullness.  The “pastoral” approach must be in response to the desire of the faithful in this instance, for otherwise it loses its purpose.

We can “test” that desire next week with the approaching Feast of the Ascension of the Lord.  As we have suffered through an even greater post-paschal malaise this year than in previous years, perhaps this truly glorious Feast – in which we commemorate, celebrate and actualize the glorification of the Risen Lord and His ascension into Heaven – can initiate a much-needed parish renewal.  In order to maximize the potential for greater participation in the Eucharist when the Feast actually falls, we will schedule a Vesperal Liturgy for next Wednesday evening at 6:00 p.m.  The Ascension is an event that further fulfills the paschal victory over death revealed by Christ in His Resurrection.  The Ascension into Heaven of the Lord is absolutely essential in the over-all divine economy.  It celebrates the deification of our human nature at the right hand of the Father in the risen and glorified Christ.  Anyone who celebrates Pascha with the faith that Christ is indeed risen from the dead, will have a strong desire to celebrate His glorious Ascension.  And that may involve working on our domestic schedules, establishing our deepest priorities, and manifesting some effort to be present in the church and worshipping at the service.

The future fate of the pastorally-initiated Vesperal Liturgy is uncertain.  Taking “advantage” of its current usage is something everyone should strongly consider.

The Mysterious Tapestry of Motherhood

Annunciation Tapestry

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

Christ is Risen!

In anticipation of Mother’s Day on Sunday, I would like to share some insights from a fine article I just read in a journal entitled The Bible Today, a bi-monthly periodical wherein biblical scholars offer excellent short articles based on a wide variety of scriptural themes based on both the Old and New Testaments. The newest issue which I just received in the mail is subtitled “Mothers of the Bible.” The opening article is simply titled “Mothers in Scripture.” It is written by Mary Ann Nicholls who, in addition to having a MDiv, is currently “the Spiritual Care Coordinator for Asera Hospice Care in Dubois, PA.” She has been married for thirty-eight years and has three daughters and two granddaughters. After an opening reminiscence of time shared with her own mother viewing a marvelous tapestry at the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, she writes the following:

This  memory leads me to understand how motherhood is also a tapestry of life.  Motherhood rarely takes a charted course, seldom follows a predictable schedule, and never escapes the knots of heartache, the broken threads of disappointment, or the mismatched colors of fear and resolve.  The richest of talent and expertise can result in discarded remains; the most inexperienced can achieve through inspiration and dedication the most beautiful of finished pieces.

… Both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures provide us with mothers of all types – those who thought they had it right but were a bit out of kilter, those who needed to just begin anew because their threads were so twisted, and those women who put their efforts in the hands of God and listened to the rhythm of the weave as they grew into the grace of motherhood.

What really prepares a woman for motherhood?  All mothers begin virginally, recognizing their own poverty against the power and the mystery of life as holy, but rarely do we fully understand the potential for salvation this vocation holds for us or the child we bear.  As a result we all reach moments when we think we are acting for the right reason but learn through hindsight that our decisions and actions regarding our children needed better guidance.  Whether it be at cribside, the soccer field, a school play, the kitchen table, or over a load of dirty dishes, every mother wishes there was a chance for a “do-over” at one time or another. Repentance and reconciliation are part of every mother/child relationship.  

(p. 146-147)

The author then examines a host of scriptural examples of good and bad motherhood, as well as those somewhere in between.  She actually begins with this latter group, offering two examples of “well-intentioned mothers” who somehow managed to end up with warped results.  This section is entitled “The Warped Loom.”  If you would like to pursuit these biblical examples you will be able to read about Rebecca, the mother of Esau and Jacob at Gen. 27:5-45.  From the New Testament, she writes of the unnamed mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, found in Matt. 20:20-25.

Under the heading of “Get the Ripper; Begin Again,” we read of mothers who “really have their threads twisted.”  This includes the mother who was willing to allow Solomon to cut the child in two that she falsely claimed was her own (I Kings 3:16-27).  And there is also Herodias, the mother of Salome, who told her daughter to ask for the head of St. John the Baptist on a platter after she enticed the weak King Herod with her dancing (Matt. 14:1-12)  Of these mothers, Nicholls further writes:

There were gaps in their maternal fabric.  Their children suffered from their inadequacies; the tapestries that began as life-giving became the threads of funeral shrouds. (p. 148)

Finally, in a section entitled “The Weaver in the Hands of God,” we hear of those grace-filled women who “rose beyond the limitations of their humanity and took on the miracle of life to change the world through the gift of life.”  And yet this was “not without suffering and sorrow, disappointment and fear.” (p. 149)

The wonderful examples given here for your study and meditation are:

• The mother of Moses, especially as described in Exod. 2:1-10, and her decision to give away Moses in order to spare his life.
• Hannah, the barren woman who promised to dedicate her son to God if she could have a son, found in I Sam. 1:9-2:10.
• Lois and Eunice, the mother and grandmother of Timothy, St. Paul’s great assistant in the apostolic life, who nurtured Timothy in the study of the Scriptures, found in II Tim. 1:5.
• And, of course, the two mothers – and cousins – Mary and Elizabeth, found throughout Lk. 1-2.

Again, you may want to read these passages through on your own, as the Scriptures are rich in depicting motherhood from a variety of perspectives. In fact, it is precisely in the Bible that you will not find sentimental and basically unrealistic depictions of mothers.  In the Bible, you will find women struggling to discern the word of God and having to overcome unbelievably difficult obstacles within a patriarchal culture in order to arrive at their sacred vocations with their humanity profoundly enhanced by the grace of God.  Yet, from the examples provided by this article, some women fail in that vocation.  Nothing is guaranteed.  Life is filled with choices, as well as with circumstances that are beyond our control, and which make the right decisions so difficult to make.   It is through prayer that we seek the wisdom that comes from God; thank God for the fruitfulness of life that flows from choices that reflect that wisdom; and repent and seek forgiveness from our careless choices, so that we can begin anew.

Mary Ann Nicholls concludes her fine article with these final reflections:

Thus Scripture shows the reader that motherhood takes many forms and brings forth life in a variety of ways.  Foster mothers, adoptive mothers, those who biologically bear a child through the birth canal, even those who serve as mentors and teachers – all share in the tapestry of motherhood they weave as a commitment to the life that is given them without knowing much about where it will lead or what it will entail; the thread begins with the mystery of God breaking into one person’s life to bring forth another’s.  Flawed and perfected, the design of God’s tapestry of motherhood weaves the way of relationship of an individual to her child, to her vocation, and to the covenant with her God, a lasting narrative of life. (p. 150)

May all of our mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, and any other forms of motherhood be blessed!

With Trembling and Astonishment

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen! 

Indeed He is Risen!

O Myrrhbearing Women, why have you come to the tomb? Why do you seek the Living among the dead? The Lord is risen, take courage, cried the Angel.

(Matins, Friday of the Week of the Myrrhbearing Women)

We commemorate, praise and venerate the Myrrhbearing Women during this third week of Pascha.  Because these noble women are so often referred to collectively, perhaps we should remind ourselves of their individual names and identities as well as that can be recovered from the Scriptures and Tradition. According to the Great Horologion, we read the following: 

Of those whose names are known are the following:  first of all, the most holy Virgin Mary, who in Matthew 27:56 and Mark 15:40 is called “the mother of James and Joses” (these are the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage, and she was therefore their stepmother); Mary Magdalene (celebrated July 22); Mary, the wife of Clopas; Joanna, wife of Chouza, a steward of Herod Antipas; Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee; Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus; and Susanna.  As for the names of the rest of them, the evangelists have kept silence.  (Matt. 27:55-56; 28:1-10.  Mark 15:40-41; Luke 8:1-3; 23:55-24:11, 22-24; John 19:25; 20:11-18;  Acts 1:14)

Privileged by the Lord to be the first human persons to receive the revelation of His resurrection; and also to behold the Risen Christ on “the first day of the week;” we can only surmise with great humility and awe, what those experiences could have been like.  We know from the Scriptures that they left the empty tomb following the angelic announcement of the resurrection in “trembling and astonishment” (MK. 16:8).  According to Fr. John Breck, the Greek behind those terms (tromos kai ekstasis)  can be  rendered “ecstatic wonder.”  This  encounter with the numinous initially left them speechless. 

Yet, though we may concede the utter uniqueness of their experience, this does not mean that we cannot experience that same “trembling and astonishment” when we somehow stop the flow of our rushing thoughts and contemplate the resurrection of our Lord from the dead.  It is this confidence that such an experience is open to all believers in Christ’s resurrection that informs a wonderful passage from Fr. John Breck’s article “Ecstatic Wonder.”  Fr. John contemporizes the experience of the Myrrhbearing Women in such a way that they do not remain remote and iconic women of the past; but actually leave us - from “generation to generation” – a living image of faith that can transform our lives today:

As the memory of the paschal celebration fades in the days and weeks following the feast, we are offered in the Myrrhbearing Women an image – a living icon – of paschal wonder, ecstatic wonder.  If we listen attentively to the magnificent hymns of the Pentecostarion, we can hear the angelic announcement they heard and share the wonder that was theirs.  In the midst of our ordinariness – shopping, taking the kids to school, fussing with the computer, sitting through office meetings, fighting traffic, or battling anxieties in the middle of the night – in the midst of all of it, that image of the Myrrhbearing Women extends an invitation.  It calls us to step out of ourselves for a while, and with them to enter the tomb where Jesus was laid out in death.  It calls us to contemplate the ineffable mystery of the empty shroud, together with the angelic proclamation, “He is not here, He is risen!”

Out of that silent contemplation can come once again the profound sense of awe, of ecstatic wonder, that seized the women and all of those who beheld the risen Lord.  As it did for the apostle Paul, that awe and that wonder can lift us out of our ordinariness, if only for a moment, and give us a glimpse, a blessed foretaste, of Paradise. (From Longing for God, p. 160)

To a great extent, it is our choice that determines what will actually fill us with “trembling and astonishment.”  And that will in turn be determined by what most deeply impresses itself upon our hearts.  Gazing into the empty tomb, and knowing that it is empty because Christ is Risen, will always bring us back to that “ecstatic wonder” that we can share with the Myrrhbearing Women.

Christ is Risen!     Indeed He is Risen!

             

Gazing into the Empty Tomb

Dear Parish Faithful,

CHRIST IS RISEN!

INDEED HE IS RISEN!

Bearing life and more fruitful than paradise,

brighter than any royal chamber: 

Thy tomb, O Christ, is the fountain of our resurrection.

(Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom)

The “empty tomb” has been a point of endless discussion and debate among biblical scholars for quite some time now.  The issue is not simply one of whether or not the tomb of Jesus was indeed empty when the myrrhbearing women discovered in on “the first day of the week.”  And, if it was empty, then why was it empty?  Those are theological or “faith” questions and claims that determine the difference between “believers” and “non-believers” based on how one may answer those questions. Rather, some biblical scholars who study the New Testament evidence concerning the resurrection of Christ challenge the very reliability of the empty tomb narratives in the canonical Gospels.  These very scholars  even going so far as to claim these narratives are basically imaginative reconstructions, for apologetic purposes, composed by the evangelists.  In other words, the empty tomb narratives are not conveying to us an actual record of events; but they are actually later inventions that are used to strengthen the claim that Jesus rose from the dead.  This is often called “historicized theology.”

In responding to these skeptical charges, many excellent biblical scholars have carefully demonstrated the reliability of these narratives with detailed and sophisticated arguments that skillfully and convincingly defend the solid historical nature of these narratives.  The haunting simplicity of these narratives; the fact that they are “unadorned” with claims of fulfilled biblical prophecy or theological embellishment; the discovery of the empty tomb by women disciples whose testimony was not binding in first century Judaism; the fact that living disciples of Christ could have refuted any invented stories; the integrity of the evangelists(!).  All of these combine to strongly support the historicity of the empty tomb narratives. As Gerald O’Collins summarizing in his book, Believing in the Resurrection:

The more we detect such a simplicity that derives from the origins of Christianity, the less plausible we find the theory that the discovery of the empty tomb was not an historical event but merely a later creation, a fictional scenario coming from the evangelist Mark.  (p. 83)

And very telling is the conclusion reached by one of the world’s great “Jesus scholars,” Geza Vermes, a scholar who does not believe that Jesus was raised from the dead:

When every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that the opinions of the orthodox, liberal sympathizer and the critical agnostic alike – and even perhaps of the disciples themselves – are simply interpretations of the one disconcerting fact:  namely that the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation not a body but an empty tomb.

Regardless of how interested or not one may be by endless discussions and debates among biblical scholars today, what is of interest to us is how integral a part the empty tomb has played within the Orthodox Christian liturgical, hymnographic, iconographic, and theological Tradition ever since the “beginnings” of the proclamation of the Gospel.  At the Liturgy yesterday, on St. Thomas Sunday, we sang in the troparion:  From the sealed tomb, Thou didst shine forth, O Life!  The discovery of the empty tomb by the myrrhbearing women is a theme constantly brought to remembrance during the paschal season and beyond within the Church’s hymnography:

Before the dawn, Mary and the women came and found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They heard the angelic voice:  “Why do you seek among the dead as a man the One who is everlasting light?  Behold the clothes in the grave!  Go and proclaim to the world:  The Lord is risen!  He has slain death, as He is the Son of God, saving the race of men.”  (Hypakoe of Pascha)

When the women disciples of the Lord learned from the angel the joyous message of Thy Resurrection; they cast away the ancestral curse and elatedly told the apostles:  Death is overthrown!  Christ God is risen, granting the world great mercy.  (Resurrectional troparion, tone 4)

The empty tomb was the great “sign” that something mysterious occurred following the death and burial of Jesus of Nazareth.  And this sign found its proper interpretation when the Risen Lord appeared to His female and male disciples – in that order.  The tomb was empty because Jesus had been raised from the dead!  Christians do not believe in the  empty tomb, but in the Risen Lord.  But Christians cannot believe in the Risen Lord if the tomb was not found to be empty.  The empty tomb may be a “secondary” sign of the resurrection, but it is essential to the claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  The empty tomb reveals that it is a fully embodied life – and not a disembodied life – that is the ultimate goal of a glorified life in the presence of God.  This is one of many reasons why all four evangelists include accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb as climatic points of their respective Gospels.

In a section of his book, Believing in the Resurrection, entitled “The Sign of the Tomb,” Gerald O’Collins eloquently comments on the significance of this great sign:

First, in the New Testament the empty tomb stood for a return from the dead and all that such a return implied.  The burial of people signified that they were removed from the land of the living and had fallen into the power of death …

 Where tombs express the finality and irrevocable loss of death, Jesus’ open and empty tomb symbolized the fullness of the new and everlasting life into which he had risen.  Here the emptiness of the tomb, paradoxically, indicated the fullness of life into which the risen Jesus had entered.  Graves naturally suggest the quiet decay of an existence dissolved by death.  The empty tomb of Jesus symbolized the opposite, the complete life that had overcome the silence of death.

Second, the emptiness of Jesus’ grave reflects the holiness of what it once held:  the corpse of the incarnate  Son of God, who lived totally for others and died to bring a new covenant of love for all people.  This ‘Holy One’ could not “experience corruption”  (ACTS 2:27)

Third … God did not discard Jesus’ corpse but mysteriously raised and transfigured it, so as to reveal what lies ahead for human beings and their world.  In short, the empty tomb in Jerusalem forms God’s radical sign that redemption is not an escape to a better world but a wonderful transformation of this world.  Seen that way, the open and empty tomb of Jesus is highly significant for anyone who want to appreciate what redemption means.  (p. 94-95)

As others engage in the debate over the empty tomb, let us with a living faith gaze into that empty tomb as did the myrrhbearing women and some of the disciples and “hear” the voice of the angelic proclamation:  “Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him”  (MK. 16:6).

CHRIST IS RISEN!     INDEED HE IS RISEN!

The Appearances of the Risen Jesus

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

CHRIST IS RISEN!
INDEED HE IS RISEN!

On this Bright Friday, I would again like to turn to and draw from a current book I am reading – Believing in the Resurrection – by the biblical scholar Gerald O’Collins, renowned for his tireless commitment over the years of studying the resurrection of Christ in a nearly exhaustive manner. The third chapter of this most recent and admirable study is entitled “The Appearances of the Risen Jesus.” This chapter is meant to explore the reliability and meaning of the many appearances of the Risen Christ to various of His disciples. O’Collins also lists and critiques the usual objections to these appearances of Christ. For the moment, I would simply like to share his carefully constructed list of these appearances “to groups and individuals:”

• To “the twelve” (I COR. 15:3)
• To “the eleven and those with them” (LK. 24:33-49)
• To “those who came up with him [Jesus] from Galilee” (ACTS 13:31)
• To “the disciples” (JN. 20:19-23; MK. 16:7)
• To “all the apostles” (I COR. 15:7; obviously in Paul’s list a distinct and
• larger group than the Twelve)
• To Simon Peter and six others (JN. 21:1-14)
• To “more than five hundred brothers and sisters” (I COR. 15:6)
• To Cleopas and his companion (LK. 24:13-35)
• To Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (MATT. 28:9-10)
• To Mary Magdalene (JN. 20:11-18; MK. 16:9-11)
• To Cephas/Peter (I COR. 15:5; MK. 16:7; LK. 24:34)
• To James (I COR. 15:7)
• To Saul/Paul (for example, I COR. 9:1; 15:8); ACTS 9:1-9) (p. 61)

What is quite interesting, is that when O’Collins addresses the skeptical counter-theories that attempt to discredit the testimony of these appearance of the Risen Lord, he makes the telling point that these skeptical theories invariably do not address the multiplicity and variety of these appearances. In other words, the “hallucinations” theory hardly takes into account the various persons involved; the various settings; and even the chronological factor (Paul comes a few years later than the Twelve).

I would simply propose that each of us can turn this into an effective and illuminating “home Bible Study” – alone or with other family members. In other words, find these various scriptural passages and read them carefully so as to discover the wider context of each of the Lord’s appearances – in Galilee, Jerusalem, indoors, outdoors, etc. What seems to be purpose of each appearance? Is it to convey a commission, to call to mission, to reveal something of the mysterious nature of the resurrection, to re-establish a profound sense of fellowship and communion, to convince others that it is Jesus Himself, to overcome any doubts, etc. This kind of careful and prayerful study can be deeply rewarding. It will lead us to ask questions of our own relationship with Christ. What do these passages convey to us today, in the daily setting of my life “here and now?”

Just as the paschal season is not an “appendix” or afterthought to Great Lent and Holy Week; so the resurrection of Christ is not the “happy ending” to the pathos and drama of the Cross. The Resurrection is the fulfillment of the entire economy of the Son; for the Son of God came to overcome the “last enemy” – death – on our behalf. The resurrection narratives have a different quality to them – they are without precedent! – and yet it is the reality and life that permeates these accounts and the entire New Testament that are the very basis of our Faith. Without the resurrection there would be no New Testament to even speak about – just as there would be no Church or even no memory of Jesus of Nazareth. Here is something worthy of those precious commodities of ours – time and energy.

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

The Historicity of the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

CHRIST IS RISEN!
INDEED HE IS RISEN!

I always choose a good book or two about the Resurrection of Christ to read during the paschal season. The one that I have already started this week is by Gerald O’Collins, a Jesuit scholar, who has been carefully studying and writing about the resurrection for many years now. His newest book is entitled Believing in the Resurrection – The Meaning and Promise of the Risen Jesus. It promises to be an excellent book and a thorough study by a premiere biblical scholar. In addition to his own careful analysis of the biblical evidence, O’Collins also surveys and critiques the most significant works that have been published in the last ten years or so from scholars on the “resurrection question/debate” in the New Testament. The author has emerged over the years as one of the most renowned defenders of the historicity of the bodily resurrection of Christ. Any other conclusion for O’Collins is a betrayal of the evidence – and a betrayal of the Christian Gospel. As both a scholar and a man of Christian faith, he very steadily and thoroughly builds up an impressive case for that claim, and for the centrality and reliability of the New Testament data concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Yet, O’Collins goes beyond a defense of the historicity of the resurrection accounts, and wants to further elaborate on what the resurrection means for our own human destiny – a destiny that the New Testament reveals as the “resurrection of the dead” - and for the sacramental and ethical life of Christian believers. The risen Jesus is present, and this presence is confirmed and convincingly conveyed by the simultaneous presence of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the resurrection is first about Jesus; but then it is about us, His followers and disciples, and the relationship we create with Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, and the “life” that we have in His Name.

Hopefully, I will be able to share a few summaries of his rich biblical exegesis over the paschal season on these inter-related themes of such great importance for Christian faith. The Preface opens with an intriguing question:

Is Jesus merely a great but dead hero, or is he a risen, living presence? That troubling question of enormous significance has been around for two thousand years. (p. v)

O’Collins then summarizes the startling and radical claims made by Christians from the very dawn of the Christian movement up to the present day. These powerful claims emerge from the earliest certainty that Jesus had been bodily raised from death:

Christians claim that the crucified Jesus had been raised from the dead and remains powerfully present in our world – a claim that deserves serious attention from any thoughtful person. If we accept this claim as true, it should radically change the way we live our lives as well as the hopes that we entertain for ourselves and for our world. We are not destined at death to lose consciousness forever and return our bodies to the pool of cosmic matter. The resurrection promises us a glorious personal future beyond this life, a future that, in “a new heaven and a new earth” (REV. 21:1), will bring a radical transformation not only for our bodily existence but also for our material world.

But we can never forget the “scandal” of those claims based upon the “dead end” of Christ’s public ministry:

This is an extraordinary claim and an extraordinary promise, both centered on someone who died as a criminal on a cross, abandoned by nearly all of his followers, and seemingly abandoned by the God whose kingdom he had preached. (p. v)

Christians must never forget that they believe that a crucified Jew is the Savior of the world, now “seated” as Lord “at the right hand of God!” O’Collins further summarizes this seismic shift in the perception of who Jesus actually is, as it occurred in a such a relatively short space of time within the earlier years of the Church:

Thus, faith in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead had a dramatic aftermath. It prompted a remarkable account of him as the divine Lord of the entire universe. Remember that the life and death of Jesus had occurred no more than twenty years before Paul, the First Christian writer, began composing and sending his letters. It was startling to maintain that someone of such very recent memory was now “sitting” on the divine throne and reigning over the world “at the right hand” of God. (p. vi)

From within the Church, we need not “prove” the resurrection of Christ, or convince each other of its truthfulness. This is our belief, and we hope a part of our experience from within the grace-filled atmosphere of the Church. But since every basic claim made about Christ is challenged, rejected or mocked – often enough by self-designated Christians! - in the current climate of post-modern relativism and skepticism, it is good to witness a spirited and well-informed refutation of those contemporary “heresies” by faithful scholars offering a “defense” for the hope that is in us (I PET. 3:15) Orthodox Christians need to be grateful to such scholars as Gerald O’Collins who intelligently and eloquently meet those challenges on behalf of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” (JUDE 3) And the very basis of that faith is that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

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