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Jesus uses the events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday to inspire a yearlong way of life.
“Whew! Lent is over. Now we can go back to our regular lives, right?”
That’s what I tend to think on the day after Easter Sunday. But this year especially I’ve been able to see just how short-sighted that attitude is.
This year on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, I was struck at how Jesus uses these events to inspire a yearlong way of life.
First, the crucifix and empty tomb say: “No longer be unbelieving, but believe.”
The two stark images of Easter are the cross where Jesus died abandoned by nearly all of his followers because they didn’t believe, and the empty tomb that stands as an invitation to investigate what happened.
In Mark and Matthew, an angel invites the women to “Come, see the place where he lay.” John’s Gospel shows why: Seeing the burial cloths there was enough to convince them Jesus rose from the dead, because a grave robber would never remove the wrappings pasted on a body with myrrh and then neatly arrange them.
Jesus invites Thomas to investigate the Resurrection in a different way: by probing not the tomb, but his wounds.
The message is clear: Our faith rests on a historical claim. So we should investigate that claim. I have amassed many books on the resurrection, but the most accessible may be “The Sign of Jonah” ending to Brant Pitre’s The Case for Jesus. A good companion book by a non-believer is historian Tom Holland’s Dominion, which fills out Pitre’s case that what happened in Ninevah is happening worldwide to this day.
Second, Easter says: “Search the Scriptures!”
Continued below.
aleteia.org
“Whew! Lent is over. Now we can go back to our regular lives, right?”
That’s what I tend to think on the day after Easter Sunday. But this year especially I’ve been able to see just how short-sighted that attitude is.
This year on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, I was struck at how Jesus uses these events to inspire a yearlong way of life.
First, the crucifix and empty tomb say: “No longer be unbelieving, but believe.”
The two stark images of Easter are the cross where Jesus died abandoned by nearly all of his followers because they didn’t believe, and the empty tomb that stands as an invitation to investigate what happened.
In Mark and Matthew, an angel invites the women to “Come, see the place where he lay.” John’s Gospel shows why: Seeing the burial cloths there was enough to convince them Jesus rose from the dead, because a grave robber would never remove the wrappings pasted on a body with myrrh and then neatly arrange them.
Jesus invites Thomas to investigate the Resurrection in a different way: by probing not the tomb, but his wounds.
The message is clear: Our faith rests on a historical claim. So we should investigate that claim. I have amassed many books on the resurrection, but the most accessible may be “The Sign of Jonah” ending to Brant Pitre’s The Case for Jesus. A good companion book by a non-believer is historian Tom Holland’s Dominion, which fills out Pitre’s case that what happened in Ninevah is happening worldwide to this day.
Second, Easter says: “Search the Scriptures!”
Continued below.
After Lent and Easter, what next? Jesus' to-do list
Jesus uses the events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday to inspire a yearlong way of life.
aleteia.org
