‘On the third day he rose from the dead’

The empty tomb was still an essential sign for all, writes Cathal Barry

“We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus” (Acts 13:32-33).

The Resurrection of Jesus, according to the Church, is the crowning truth of faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community, handed on as fundamental by Tradition, established by the documents of the New Testament and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross.

The Church teaches that the mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness. In about AD 56, St Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve…” (I Cor 15:3-4). The Apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus (Acts 9:3-18).

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Lk 24:5-6). The first element we encounter in the framework of the Easter events is the empty tomb. In itself it is not a direct proof of Resurrection; the absence of Christ’s body from the tomb could be explained otherwise. Nonetheless, the empty tomb was still an essential sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognising the very fact of the Resurrection. This was the case, first with the holy women and then with Peter. The disciple “whom Jesus loved” affirmed that, when he entered the empty tomb and discovered “the linen cloths lying there”, “he saw and believed” (Jn 20:2, 6, 8).

The Catechism suggests that he realised from the empty tomb’s condition that the absence of Jesus’ body could not have been of human doing and that Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life, as had been the case with Lazarus.

Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles – and Peter in particular – in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning.

As witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church. The faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of real men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them.

Peter and the 12 are the primary “witnesses to his Resurrection”, but they are not the only ones – Paul speaks clearly of more than 500 people to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion, and also of James and of all the apostles (I Cor 15:4-8; Acts 1:22).

Given all these testimonies, the Church holds that Christ’s Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. It is clear from the facts, according to the Church, that the disciples’ faith was drastically put to the test by their master’s Passion and death on the cross, which he had foretold.