Blessed are You Who Have Not Seen And Yet Believe

In his first letter, Peter gives thanks to God, saying: 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who, in his great mercy, gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…

Then he describes the people he is writing to this way: 

Although you have not seen him (the risen Lord) you love him; even though you do not see him now yet (you) believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of [your] faith, the salvation of your souls.

We belong to this group of people. We, too, though we have not seen the risen Lord, believe in his resurrection. And we rejoice in this. When it comes to the Lord’s resurrection, we - as the people Peter addresses in his letter - are forever indebted to the apostles the Lord chose to proclaim His resurrection. Without their Easter proclamation, we won’t come to know the Lord’s resurrection, we won’t hear the news that the Father raised up Jesus from the dead. 

But why? Why do we believe even if we have not seen the risen Lord? Why do we believe the apostles’ proclamation of our Lord’s resurrection? Is it possible to believe in the Lord’s resurrection without seeing it? 

First, we have to admit that this is such a unique claim by the apostles. In the whole history of the world (even if we include Judaism - the Pharisees, for instance - where there’s this belief in the general resurrection at the end times) there’s no explicit belief that this had already happened to a specific person. Only with the apostles do we find this claim: that this person Jesus who was crucified has been raised by God from the dead. We ask again, why do we believe such a claim? 

If this were the issue in a court, what evidence could be presented to argue the case? Is this something within the competence of the court? Can a court make a judgment on this matter? Let's do an experiment. Let's pursue this train of thought. Do we believe the apostles’ claim simply because we think that they were credible witnesses, that their character was beyond reproach (e.g. that they weren’t drunks or people wont to imagine things)? If yes, is this the only basis for our belief in the Lord’s resurrection? 

If we can’t simply rely on the apostles’ credibility, can there be any other way we can verify their claim? Here, I think, we will run into a big problem, for we know that this unique event - the Lord’s resurrection from the dead - is not a recurring phenomenon in nature, like a sunrise, which we can observe and determine where and what time it happens each day. Obviously, we can’t do that with the Lord’s resurrection. So, here no observation or experiment can prove or disprove that the Lord’s resurrection happened. We’re back to square one, why do we believe? How is it possible to believe this?

This is how Karl Rahner would answer this question. First, he thinks that we can answer such a question because, according to him, we are not simply OUTSIDE of the apostles’ experience.  He says as human beings we are radically orientated to the absolute mystery that is God (what he calls the person’s transcendentality). And so we listen to this claim of the apostles with our transcendental hope in our own resurrection. In our heart of hearts, we search the whole human history for exactly such a resurrected person. And this is exactly what we find in Jesus as proclaimed by the apostles. According to Rahner, this unique event of the Lord’s resurrection, on the one hand, and the hope in our own resurrection, on the other hand, form an unbreakable bond. 

This is how I understand what Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians. Apparently, some of them had denied the resurrection. To address this, Paul writes:   

…if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, 

your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.

Then applying this to his own life, he adds:

Every day I face death; I swear it by the pride in you [brothers] that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. If at Ephesus I fought with beasts, so to speak, what benefit was it to me? If the dead are not raised…

In other words, everything would have no meaning. The sacrifice on the cross of our Lord…no meaning. This celebration now… Our retreat… Our renewal of our baptismal promises which we’re gonna do later. The Church. Yes, there would be no meaning to all the efforts we put in in our concern for life, truth, justice, etc., if there’s no value to our life beyond this life, if everything ends in death, if there’s no resurrection! 

Paul quotes the Epicurean saying: Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. If this is all there is to life and there’s nothing more to it, how come we put so much value to life? If we actually value life, not just theoretically, but in actual practice; if we live as though it has value beyond life, it is because (Paul and Rahner would say) deep inside we believe in what is proclaimed in Jesus’ resurrection. Even if you have not seen him, you love him…, says Paul. Because the fact is, Paul writes: …Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

There’s a quotation from C.S. Lewis that fits well with the point I am making here about the Lord’s resurrection. He says: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Without the Lord’s resurrection, what we search for in the deepest depths of our being would be a mere illusion; nice, but not the truth. But if there’s anything in life that has value and meaning at all, that’s because our Lord rose from the dead. 

Let me end with some points on how we can pray the Lord’s resurrection. 

To help one dispose oneself to this prayer, Ignatius says that it would help if we think of happy thoughts, happy memories, happy experiences. I always said that I had a happy childhood in the Society of Jesus and that’s because of Fr. Mat, my novice master. So, I think of the happy memories I had in the novitiate and with Fr. Mat. Or I think of things that make me smile, things that amaze or console me. For example, the Golden Trumpet flowers blooming around this time here in Bukidnon, what a sight! True, there are levels to happiness, but can you see that at the root of all these is this event of the Lord’s resurrection, the most joyous event in our lives?  

As to the matter, Ignatius instructs that as we contemplate on the Easter appearances of our Lord, as when he appeared to his Mother, appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other women with her, to Peter and the beloved disciple and the rest of the apostles, let us focus on the joy of the risen Lord and how he consoles each and everyone. 

Let the risen Lord console us, too, in our celebration of the Easter Vigil. As tonight in our vigil, let us be vigilant in seeking and finding the crucified and risen Lord in our everyday life. May the joy of the risen Lord be with you always! Happy Easter! Alleluia! Alleluia!     

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Easter Vigil, 30 March 2024

St. Ignatius Chapel, Jesuit Retreat House, Malaybalay