<\/p>\n
There are some things we just find hard to accept, things which seem so hard to believe and impossible to picture that we shake our heads in bewilderment.\u00a0 The resurrection of the body is one of those things.<\/p>\n
First, there is the whole idea of life after death.\u00a0 Death seems so final, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Especially when we watch a person lowered into the ground.\u00a0 What could life after death possibly be like?\u00a0 Much has been written recently by people who clinically die and then come back to life.\u00a0 These people claim to have experienced \u201clife after death\u201d.\u00a0 And while their experiences are similar, there are definite differences- important differences; not to mention that these experiences are difficult for even the most articulate person to describe- they are basically indescribable, they are not of this world.\u00a0 And so, reasoning people doubt these experiences as well.<\/p>\n
And second, how can we rise with our physical bodies?\u00a0 Our bodies are corruptible. \u00a0They decay and are gone in a matter of years or decades.\u00a0 Now there are some saints whose bodies have not decayed- we have many stories of that.\u00a0 Certain popes and St. Francis for example.\u00a0 But still, what about all the rest of us?\u00a0 And what function would these physical bodies have in the Kingdom of God? \u00a0\u00a0The Resurrection is something that we learn in Religion.\u00a0 But when it comes to living in the real world, our science and reason driven secular society leaves us doubting the Resurrection of our bodies to Everlasting Life.<\/p>\n
But wait a minute: What about Easter, and the joy of Easter?\u00a0 You see, we can really begin to understand true Christian joy if we put ourselves in the position of the Apostles on Easter Morning.\u00a0 Because they had just lost the Lord to a terrible death and doubt reigned supreme in their minds.\u00a0 After all, they had all the same natural inclinations that we do to doubt the Resurrection.\u00a0 But in their case, they had gone out on a limb.\u00a0 They had believed Jesus was the Messiah.\u00a0 But rather than conquer the Romans, Jesus had been brutally victimized by the Romans and was dead.\u00a0 How depressing; how final it all seemed.<\/p>\n
And then, walla, Jesus Christ is raised from the dead and he is seen by them- in His physical body.\u00a0 Not only that, he eats and drinks with them.\u00a0 He explains the scriptures to them, that all of what happened to him was prophesied so that they could see, once and for all, that everything God had promised had come true.\u00a0 And now- here He was, Resurrected.<\/p>\n
Life after death is real, and all who believe, and follow God\u2019s will are heirs to the same Resurrected life in the Kingdom of God.\u00a0 That is the Christian hope for those who believe, I mean really believe.\u00a0 Imagine their joy, and why it lasted for 8 weeks while Jesus was with them.\u00a0 I can understand that kind of joy.<\/p>\n
All of us are called upon to believe and to live in Christian hope.\u00a0 We are not eye witnesses like the Apostles were.\u00a0 But the bodies and souls of those of us who believe will rise on the last day.\u00a0 And inherit everlasting life- just believe it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Easter Thursday Acts 3: 11-26; Luke 24: 35-48 Dc. Larry Brockman There are some things we just find hard to accept, things which seem so hard to believe and impossible to picture that we shake our heads in bewilderment.\u00a0 The resurrection of the body is one of those things. First, there is the whole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[199,150],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}