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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.
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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.
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