Posted on April 9, 2023 View all Gospel Reflection
“Easter by the numbers”
1 Corinthians 15:4 says, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
This verse reads very much like an early creed: “I believe,” that ‘on the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.”
This shows that the church of the very beginning understood the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as the resurrection of the crucified and buried body of Jesus.
Paul the Apostle says this was passed on to him orally in tradition (paredōka = “I delivered”; parelabon = “I received”) 1 Corinthians 15:1-8.
3 days is the only pattern of which eternal life is given.
The Trinitarian formula.
The sign of Jonah.
“To die and thus to become” the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said and basic Christian doctrine agrees that “to die” is thus “to become” because the soul is immortal. After death, a person will live forever- the question is where?
Today on Easter Sunday, the decision is whether to have eternal life or not? On this day of salvation, choose to believe that God sent his Jesus to suffer and die on the Cross in expiation of all sin and was raised on the Third day.
2). First is the ordinal of Easter proclaimed in the narrative formula, “the first day of the week.” Mark 16:9
The discovery of the empty tomb was made on the first day of the week which is the very day of the Resurrection of Jesus, known as the Lord’s Day or Sunday.
When the sabbath was over which is Saturday, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint the body of Jesus [not knowing how or who would remove the stone].
They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (Mark 16:1-3).
Many of us today are like these women- hand over your worries to God. “Peace be with you” are the words of the Risen Lord to us.
Sunday is now the day of Christian worship and Sabbath rest in commemoration of the Lord’s resurrection on the first day of the week.
Sunday is always celebrated as a little Easter where the whole community of the faithful encounters the risen Lord who invites them to his banquet. Catechism 1166.
Do you realize that public worship is actually inscribed in our hearts by natural law to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship to praise and thank God for his universal beneficence to all? Catechism, 2176.
Not to do worship at Mass on Sunday without being excused for illness or the care of infants hurts ourselves by sin.
The Lord’s Day is Sunday a day of appropriate relaxation of mind and body.
Genesis 2:1-3 says that on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day.
From this text, we are presented with a paradigm of creation: six days of work and one day of rest. Within the polarity of the six and one the whole drama of creation occurs.
God is not totally absorbed by the divine project.
Separate from your tasks.
[Sabbath rest and Sunday worship by Maureena P. Fritz, The Way. Supplement, 97 Spring 2000, p 38-51.]
So now we ask you to rise and we will renew those promises that we made long ago and we will say with a full heart, “I do.”
