For Christians, the Resurrection of Jesus, called the Christ, lies at the very heart of their belief and faith. Good Friday, then, is a very good day indeed. It is a day in which the promises of Jesus and those of the Old Testament were fulfilled.
The New Testament is a gradual unfolding for Christians of
the realization that God is with us -- in every sense of these words. God is “for
us”; he will not abandon creatures he has made in his image. God is trustworthy,
and we believe in his promises. He is alive
in our lives. This is the sum and substance of Christianity.
Jesus offers his disciples a foretaste of his divinity in
New Testament accounts. The resurrected Jesus tells doubting Thomas, “You have
seen and you believe. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
The apostle Peter, recognized by Christians as the rock upon
which Jesus built his church, was a believer in the divinity of Jesus – up to a
point. Three times he denied he knew Jesus before he was scourged and
crucified. Meeting Jesus at the Sea of Galilee following the resurrection,
Peter is questioned: “Peter, do you love me more than these? [the other
disciples who were present.] Peter responds, “You know that I love you.” Peter
is asked the same question three times, and he responds similarly, according to
John 21:25 – three denials and three reaffirmations.
Immediately following the crucifixion, the apostles, fearing
a like fate, fled in fear and hid themselves. The first to recognize the risen
Christ was Mary Magdalene, according to the gospels of John and Mark.
“Early on the first
day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and
saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon
Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved [John], and said to
them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they
have laid him’” (John 20:1-2).
“Jesus said to her,
‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to
my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to
my God and your God.’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have
seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her” (John
20:17-18).
Because Jesus entrusted Mary Magdalene to relay the good
news of his resurrection to the other apostles, she is called among some
Christians, the “Apostle to the Apostles.”
On what grounds do you believe is a reasonable question, but
it is preceded in importance by the question: What do you believe? We go to
scripture for assurance, to be sure. But in troublesome times that challenge
belief, we go to it for courage. A man’s son is troubled by seizures caused, he
thinks, by an unclean spirit. The apostles were of no help. In despair, the man
turns to Jesus and is told to believe. “I do believe. Help thou my unbelief.”
Details such as these, C.S. Lewis thought, are accurate
non-invented reports wholly unlike those that a novelist like Lewis would
conjure. Lewis says somewhere that he as a novelist knows the difference
between a fictional representation of invented facts and a true account of a
witnessed event. The New Testament is strewn with accounts of witnessed events.
Christian scholars used to believe that the Gospel of John,
very poetic, was written very late, but modern scholars place it early in the 2nd
century. It was regarded as less historical than earlier gospels, but archeologists,
using descriptions in John, discovered a few years ago the site where Jesus was
judged, Pilate's Judgment Hall, also known as the Praetorium.
The courage to believe is a separate matter, essential to
discovery and faith. And it is essential to evangelization, i.e. sharing the
good news.
On this Good Friday, may God give us the gift of courage and
fill out hearts with gratitude.
______________________
Addendum:
Visiting San
Marco convento in Florence several years ago, my wife Andree and I were
astonished by the above fresco – and others -- of resident monk Fra Angelico.
Comments