Resurrection Is the Heart of Christianity

In the second reading at Mass this weekend, St. Paul offers one of his most shocking teachings. He wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins….If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all” (1 Corinthians 15:17,19).

In other words, St. Paul was saying that if a person doesn’t believe Jesus actually, physically rose from the dead, then that person might as well stop calling himself a Christian and rather than going to Mass he should instead join the Sunday morning bowling league.

(No, wait. I’m kidding. Far too many people have already stopped going to church. I don’t want to be accused of adding to the problem.)

The fact of the matter is: belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the heart of the Christian faith. If He did indeed rise, then we have a chance to spend eternity in Heaven. But if He did not rise, and it was all just a fancy fable made up years later, then we might as well go bowling, because we are, as Paul wrote, still in our sins.

Unfortunately, the idea that someone can rise from the dead is a major stumbling block for many folks nowadays. I guess that’s not too surprising, since the idea of a dead guy coming back to life flies in the face of everything we know about our natural world.

After all, science tells us that when an organism dies, it stays dead. Medical researchers have never chronicled a single case where a dead person came back to life. The cemeteries in our communities are the quietest places in town—except on those occasions when high school kids decide to have a beer party among the grave stones.

An important concept at work here is known as the “anti-supernatural bias,” which is the idea that the natural world is the ONLY world. The thinking goes something like this: “Since I’ve never seen a supernatural miracle, that proves they cannot happen.”

If we believe the natural world is the only world, that is, if our starting point for understanding reality is the declaration that miracles are absolutely impossible, then of course a miracle such as a resurrection cannot happen.

But if we expand our understanding, if we acknowledge that there just might be a supernatural dimension to reality above and beyond the natural dimension, and therefore miracles, though extremely rare, are possible, then we can rationally and reasonably believe that rising from the dead might occur.

If you would like some powerful evidence that there is a supernatural dimension to reality, then spend some time studying the genetic code. The data encoded in our DNA is more sophisticated and complex than the most advanced computer software ever written by the brilliant engineers at Microsoft, Google, or Apple. If you think such an immense collection of intricate information and instructions just formed itself by accident without any outside intelligent guidance at all, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell to you.

Admittedly, believing that resurrections can occur is kind of challenging. But once we come to understand that God is real and that He can perform miracles, a hope in resurrection transforms curious stories about a Jewish carpenter into a life-altering, joyful faith. God’s promise that He will raise our mortal bodies allows us to look death right in the eye and laugh, just as St. Paul did in one of his other shocking statements: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).

When we come to believe that Jesus really, physically rose from the dead, it changes everything. We can, like Paul, mockingly laugh at death. And we can go to Mass with grateful and joyful hearts—which is a lot better than going bowling.