[AI translation] Jesus often said things that would take your breath away... For example, when he called himself the Son of God, or when he simply declared, "I am... the truth..." (Jn 14,6) At other times he said: "I and the Father are one." (Jn 10,30); "He who has seen me has seen the Father..." (Jn 14,9b). But perhaps the most powerful of his many mighty revelations is the one we now read, in which the mystery of his divine reality is best revealed to us.It was uttered before the great event of Easter, when our Lord comforted Martha at the death of Lazarus. I can only imagine how little Martha must have understood, for at that time no one could have dreamed, even with the wildest imagination, of the miracle that took place on Easter morning. But we, looking back from the opened tomb, can hear this divinely self-conscious declaration of Jesus: 'I am the resurrection and the life: he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live', he says in our basic hymn.
It is in the light of this Word that I would now like to speak about the holy miracle that the Christian Church has been proclaiming and proclaiming about Jesus for 2,000 years: '... on the third day he will rise from the dead!'
So, Jesus says: "I am the resurrection!" An unheard of statement! Never before or since has man dared to say such a thing about himself. And indeed: in the mouth of man it sounds absurd, even mad! Such a thing could only have been said seriously by one who knew then that something would happen to him that had never happened to anyone else in the world: he would conquer death! Because that's what happened at Easter! A concrete, not ideal, but real resurrection from the dead! That from the sea of death into which millions of people have been plunged for thousands of years, and still are plunged today, and from which no one has ever emerged: this one person has come up and emerged triumphantly! One might say now: but Lazarus has risen from the dead, and the youth of Nain, and the daughter of Jairus. But then Jesus is not the first and the only one! For Jesus did not rise from the dead like Lazarus and the others! They were all resurrected into this life on earth, as it were returned from death into this life, into the life beyond death, into transience, and Jesus, through death, all the way, through the reality of death, reached the other side, into eternity, by his resurrection. Easter, then, is not a temporary return to transient life, but a great, bold, decisive, path-opening advance into eternal life! At Easter, Jesus did not return to the prison of this transitory world into which he was born and shrunk at Christmas, but broke out of prison into the freedom of eternal life.
Had he only risen like Lazarus, or the daughter of Jairus, it might have been a very welcome, precious and blessed thing for the little company of disciples of that time, but sooner or later he would have had to die again like Lazarus. But, blessed be he, he did not rise again thus, but by triumphing over death! Death is no longer his master, but a vanquished foe, a vanquished power! This is what happened at Easter: the triumph of life-energy over death, more powerful than death. Such an unheard of great thing is this news of his resurrection!
But look, Jesus' statement is about something even greater, something more! He doesn't say: I have risen from the dead! So here Jesus is not stating a historical fact, not stating a past event with dry objectivity, but declaring, "I am the resurrection!" And with this word he simultaneously eliminates the distance between past and present, he becomes, as it were, simultaneous with me, with me! He stands before me in his living reality and addresses me: "I am the resurrection!" Listen, he says: "I am the resurrection". So our whole Christian faith is centred on a living One, based on a Self. Not on an event in the past, not on a historical fact that happened some time ago, somewhere far away. No! It is much more powerful, deeper, richer: on the protagonist, the executor of that historical fact, on the risen, living person himself, Jesus!
And do you know how great that is? Because that historical fact, that person from the past, however breathtaking it was, cannot come to us, it remains in the past, almost 2000 years away from us! Just as the former glory of Louis the Great or King Matthias stirs the Hungarian heart, but one thinks of it with a little sadness, alas: it was a long time ago!
Easter, the great event of Jesus' resurrection, was a great fact, but it was a long time ago! However, the One who was resurrected long ago, the living Jesus, simply transcends the intervening centuries, right up to the present day. He enters here, stands before us and says: "I am the resurrection!" And in doing so, he takes the fact of the resurrection out of that moment in the past and from that distant place, and makes it a reality of today, as if to say: the fact of the resurrection from the dead is not finished with my resurrection, it is not finished, no! In fact, it has just begun! My resurrection did not exhaust my life-force, it was only the first great push that broke through the massive wall of death, it broke through it! With me, a process was started: the overcoming of death by resurrection, and now I am the powerhouse of resurrection for you too! Here: I present to you the resurrection! Do you need it? Do you need it? Well: "I am the resurrection!"
Of course you do! We all do, all of us! For if we think that the great reaper is behind us all with his terrible tool, that nothing is more certain in this uncertain life than death, that all who live will one day undoubtedly sleep the sleep of death: then without the hope, even the certainty, of the resurrection, all life would be meaningless! This earthly life is full of terrors, mysteries, incomprehensible events, which, without the faith of the resurrection, one could become quite confused. Life beyond death is a confusion without the certainty of life beyond death. He who has lost faith in the afterlife slowly loses all confidence in the life of this world. Need, oh, need the resurrection! We must, we must, we must have resurrection, not only when our corpses lie in some cemetery, but before, even now! This is what Jesus is saying when he says: "I am the resurrection". I will not be when you are dead, but I am, now, here, on earth, in the present! Because one can be dead even if one is alive - one can be dead without even realizing that one is moving, speaking, acting, rejoicing, working... But still dead! Oh, how many dead happinesses, cold hearts, dead churches, but many dead family lives, dead faith, love and hope, would need resurrection!
Oh, how terrible is the death that sometimes looks out at us through the cold, unfeeling eyes of a young person! Oh, how painful is the death that is reflected in the blushing, indifferent face of some disappointed man. Oh, how painful is the death that sometimes emanates from the hateful or fiery tempers of otherwise kind men or women... What a death it must be to live a life in which one becomes so entangled that one cries out, "I wish I were dead!
All life on earth weeps for the resurrection. Well, that's what Jesus brings, resurrection. "I am the resurrection and the life!" he says, not only to the dead lying in the tomb - for them too, no doubt, they too will live through Jesus - but also to the "dead" on earth, to the dead living, he says the same thing: "I am the resurrection!" There is no death, spiritual, physical, moral, emotional, or any state of death, that is not more powerful than the resurrection!
And when Jesus grabs someone with His resurrection power, He begins, like a tractor pulling a stuck vehicle, to pull the soul out of death! All our lives are stuck, stuck somewhere. One is stuck in his own arrogance, or perhaps in his own sense of inferiority, another cannot free himself from material worries, from the power of mammon, a third is paralysed by a deadly passion, a fourth is held captive by fear, mesmerised by a beautiful face, or a secret sin, or some sadness, or the helplessness of another. All destructive forces... In a deadly embrace, the lives of us all are frozen!
Well, Jesus can pull your soul, your life, and your family, and your church - the whole world - out of all these potholes, out of all the grip of death! For He is the resurrection! Just tie yourself to Him, like a stuck vehicle to a tractor, tightly, and then the power of His resurrection, fear not, will most surely lift you out of the dragging reality of sin, of death, into a purer, happier, freer life!
Thus He said in our foundational hymn, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." He who believes in Him, who believes that He is truly the resurrection and the life! He who believes! So: not the one who understands, nor the one who sees the mystery clearly with his intellect, nor the one who may have solved the miracle of the resurrection by logical means! No! But: he who believes! He believes that Jesus is the resurrection and the life! He believes! But not as a child believes a fairy tale about giants and dwarfs and fairies, but as a bride believes the love of her fiancé, as a bride believes in her fiancé, to whom she commits her life for life.
Yes: the Christian faith is not just a credulity - don't be afraid of becoming unscientific if you believe - but a connection with a person, a living relationship with Someone, a trusting self-giving to Someone! In this message, "I am the resurrection and the life", the Risen One Himself stands before you. If you believe this, that is, if you dare to trust in Him, dare to put your life on this faith, then you will be truly taken by the Risen Jesus, and you will begin to live! Because for us, the resurrection of Jesus means LIFE, with all capital letters, the true, the full, the meaningful, the great, the happy life. The kind of life that every human soul longs for, especially when it is young. And this is a life that is indestructible, that cannot be spoiled by anything, not by sadness, not by adversity, not even by the great terror of ageing, not even by death! It is a life that sings in the most utter hopelessness, like Paul and Silas in prison, that contemplates the open sky in the face of death, like Stephen the Martyr in the shower of stones.
For to live is not to gasp at the pleasures that a brief sojourn on earth can offer; it is to seize everything that can satisfy my comfort, my vanity, my ambition, and at the same time to dread everything that can prevent me from doing so, that can sap my pleasures... I believe in life on earth - but life on earth is not the whole of life! The resurrection means that real life is much more than that! Even one week of the iceberg is only visible, six weeks are hidden from sight. The world calls only this visible one seventh of a man's life life life, but the one who believes in Jesus sees the rest, the greater, the eternal! In fact, he sees the two in one. To live truly is only possible in the perspective of eternity, because it is really one! To look out through the gap of the resurrection, to live in the light and power of the resurrection, is to begin to live in a way that I cannot live in my own power. I begin to forgive where there has been anger and regret. I begin to be patient in the midst of the greatest anxiety. I will try to shine light in the darkness, to bring joy in the sadness, to take on the burdens of selfish people, to look with clear eyes into unclean hearts, to stop worrying about the troubles of everyday life, to look to the future with serene confidence. The mystery of the resurrection is not to be understood, it cannot be understood, but lived, because it can be lived! Through faith in the Risen One, Jesus himself becomes alive in man!
Brothers, Easter is a celebration of joy, a celebration of triumph! So do not worry, do not grieve, do not despair, never lose hope: Jesus lives, and whoever believes in Him lives! Let us rejoice on this feast of triumph!
Christ is risen, whom death has taken;
Let us rejoice and be glad, Christ is our consolation, Alleluia!
Unless He rise again, there is no more forgiveness,
But he lives, so holy is his name, Let us sing his praises, Alleluia!
Alleluia, Alleluia! Alleluia!
Let us rejoice, let us be glad, Christ is our comfort. Alleluia!
Hymn 185
Amen
Date: 17 April 1960, Easter Sunday.
Lesson
Mt 28,1-10