There is also downloadable option there.
Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” John 20 pic.twitter.com/kSisRpFqOH— ICE (@ICEontario) April 16, 2023
From here:
“The heart of the earth has accepted and received the Son of God; and it is from a womb so consecrated, this womb of the ‘hellish’ depths of human existence, that the saved creature rises up. Not just (not even temporarily) in the Son alone. It is not that he alone descended and so rose again as victor because death could not hold him captive. ‘Even now’ he is not the firstborn among the dead in the sense that he is even now the only human being to have found the complete fulfillment of his whole human reality. . . . the Son of Man ‘cannot’ have risen alone. What, we may ask, is really to be understood by his glorified bodily condition (if we take it seriously, and don’t spiritualize it into another way of talking about his eternal ‘communion with God’) right up to the ‘Last Day’, if meanwhile it should persist all by itself—something which is precisely unthinkable for the bodily condition (though glorified)? So when we find in Mt 27:52 s. that other bodies too, those of saints, rose up with him (indeed even ‘appeared’—as he himself did—to show that the end of the ages has already come upon us), this is merely positive evidence from Scripture for what we would have expected anyway, if definitive salvation has already been unshakably founded, death conquered, and a man, for whom it is never good to be alone, has entered upon the fulfillment of his whole being. Hence to try to set aside this testimony from Matthew as a ‘mythological’ intrusion, or to argue away its eschatological meaning with ingenious evasions—such as that it is merely a matter of a temporary resurrection or even of ‘phantom bodies’—would not be in accord with the authoritative voice of Scripture. It is a fact that by far the greater part of the Fathers and the theologians, right up to the present day, have firmly maintained the eschatological interpretation of the text as the only one possible from the exegetical point of view.”
He is Risen! Michelangelo's magisterial vision of the Resurrected Christ bursting from the tomb into the dazzling light, c.1532. Happy Easter! https://t.co/94kCw2wJgy pic.twitter.com/wK8qPIqCXP
— Rosie Razzall (@RazzallRosie) April 21, 2019
We are an Easter people living in the story that started under the bright stars in a stable at Bethlehem, moved into the darkness that shrouded Christ on the cross, and now stands breathless before biggest occasion to crash into our history. Fleming Rutledge calls it “the transhistorical event,” where the true nature of God was revealed in Christ.
Rutledge says:
The resurrection is not a set piece. It is not an isolated demonstration of divine dazzlement… Since the resurrection is God’s mighty transhistorical Yes to the historically crucified Son, we can assert that the crucifixion is the most important historical event that has ever happened. …The resurrection ratifies the cross as the way “until He comes.” The Crucifixion (44)
We live in the now and the ‘not yet.’ And in the meantime, which is what we have—the ‘meantime’—our songs are like those in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings on the Fields of Cormallen, where the minstrel sang to all the host “until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together, and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”
Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again! Alleluia!
‘They recognised him at the breaking of bread.’
May we too recognise the presence of the risen Lord this day.
Icon by @mikeq00L pic.twitter.com/NpfZz7OSyL
— Audrey Hamilton 🌻🏴 🙏🇺🇦 (@AudieHamilton) April 20, 2022
O Lord God Almighty, whose blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ did on the third day rise triumphant over death: Raise us, we beseech thee, from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness, that we may seek those things which are above, where he sitteth on thy right hand in glory; and this we beg for the sake of the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Resurrection, portable icon, by Ilias Moskos, 1679. From the collections of the Byzantine Museum of Athens #Onthisday #byzantine #museum #athens #GreekEaster #Easter2018 #EasterSaturday pic.twitter.com/RksC1gBlaP
— Byzantine Museum (@byzantinemuseum) April 7, 2018
So, how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? Here I have some bracing suggestion to make. I have to believe that many churches simply throw Easter away year by year; and I want to plead that we rethink how we do it so as to help each other, as a church and as individuals, to live what we profess.
For a start, consider Easter Day itself…Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power—…we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows…It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way.
But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.
…Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?
…we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins…
…if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up….Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative…. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. …if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.”
—Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008) pp. 255-257
Incredulity of Saint Thomas (1602)
by Caravaggio
Style: Baroque#art #painting #artoftheday #Caravaggio #Baroque pic.twitter.com/ZtAon56gP4— Art On Timeline (@ArtOnTimeline) April 13, 2023
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Church at Dyer
… formerly, Dyer United Methodist Church#AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #Highlands #Faith #Hope #Love #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/GSUilHdvXj— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) April 16, 2023
Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
To you therefore who believe, he is precious, but for those who do not believe,
“The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner,”
and
“A stone that will make men stumble,
a rock that will make them fall”;
for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.
–1 Peter 2:2-10
Good Morning pic.twitter.com/QMmLzcAutF
— philip jackson (@pajacksonartist) April 16, 2023
God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
through your Spirit fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen (slightly edited–KSH).
John 21:1-14
The disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord.’ At these words ‘It is the Lord’, Simon Peter, who had practically nothing on,wrapped his cloak round him and jumped into the water. The other disciples came on in the boat, towing the net and the fish…#Gospel pic.twitter.com/339WXcyd0m— Kalina Boulter (@Kalina_Boulter) April 14, 2023
Heavenly Father, you have delivered us from the dominion of sin and death, and brought us into the kingdom of your beloved Son: Grant that, as by his death he has called us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal joys; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A fairy portal of a blackthorn holloway 🤍
Bitterns booming & marsh harriers wheeling above. #Southwold pic.twitter.com/djuBg5pnBy— Beatrice Groves (@beatricegroves1) April 15, 2023
O God, who for our redemption didst give thine only begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection hast delivered us from the power of the enemy: Grant us to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Titian’s magnificent Averoldi Polyptych, with the resurrection at its centre. A triumphant and blazing Christ above a dawn dark yellow and grey sky. He holds the Crusader banner as an emblem of the church. Happy Easter! pic.twitter.com/rLhvr0uDzw
— Venice Art Guide (@VeniceArtGuide) April 21, 2019
If there’s anything Catholics in the United States should have learned over the past two decades, it’s that order—in the world, the republic, and the Church—is a fragile thing. And by “order,” I don’t mean the same old same old. Rather, I mean the dynamic development of world politics, our national life, and the Church within stable reference points that guide us into the future.
Many of those reference points seem to have come unstuck, and that’s why we’re experiencing an unusual amount of air turbulence these days….Those who don’t remember the two decades immediately after Vatican II and haven’t taken the trouble to learn that history are understandably upset by the fragility of order in the Church today. But they should also understand that this is not 1968, or 1978, or even 1988, and that a lot of ballast was put into the Barque of Peter during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. For all the challenges it faces, and despite the determination of some to revisit what they regard as the glorious Seventies, the Church in the U.S. is in far, far better condition to withstand the air turbulence of the moment than it was forty years ago. And that’s because truth, spoken winsomely and in charity, but without fudging, has proven a powerful instrument of evangelization and spiritual growth in a culture wallowing in various confusions.
At the bottom of the bottom line is the Resurrection. It’s entirely possible to hold fast to the truth that Jesus of Nazareth was raised by God to a new form of bodily life after his crucifixion and be deeply concerned about the state of the Church today. But it’s not possible to know the Risen Lord and to indulge in despair. Despair died on the cross and unshakeable hope was born at Easter. That’s why Easter faith is the surest anchor for all of us in turbulent times.
Good morning all
Buenas dias pic.twitter.com/l8fulrqkHS— Mystic Mel (@Melshenny1) April 14, 2023
Listen to it all.
Today that question, that debate—Did Jesus really rise from the dead historically, bodily?—is not as prominent or as intense because, at one level, people feel that it doesn’t matter to them, because different people believe in different things, and maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t; and if it did, or didn’t, and that helps you get along in life, fine; but it doesn’t make much difference to me. I may or may not call myself a Christian, and if the resurrection seems helpful to me, I may believe it; and if it doesn’t, then I won’t, and I don’t think any body should tell me that I have to.
Behind those two different kinds of unbelief–the kind from 40 years ago and the kind from the present day–is a different set of assumptions. For example, in my college days the assumption pretty much still held sway, though it was starting to give way with the rise of existentialism, that there are fixed, closed natural laws, that make the world understandable and scientifically manageable, and these laws do not allow the truth of the claim that someone has risen from the dead to live forever. That was a commonly held assumption: The modern world with its scientific understanding of natural laws does not allow for resurrections. So unbelief was often rooted in that kind of assumption.
But today, that’s not the most common working assumption. Today the assumption is not that there are natural laws outside of me forbidding the resurrection of Jesus, but there is a personal law inside of me that says: I don’t have to adapt my life to anything I don’t find helpful. Or you could state it another way: Truth for me is what I find acceptable and helpful.
'Alleluia! Christ is risen!'
Wishing you a very Happy Easter from all of us at Westminster Abbey pic.twitter.com/BZrxOqK5ax
— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) April 9, 2023
Not darkness but twilight
In which even the best
of minds must make its way
now. And slowly the questions
occur, vague but formidable
for all that. We pass our hands
over their surface like blind
men feeling for the mechanism
that will swing them aside. They
yield, but only to re-form
as new problems; and one
does not even do that
but towers immovable
before us.Is there no way
of other thought of answering
its challenge? There is an anticipation
of it to the point of
dying. There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.
God,however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are the witnesses; and it is the name of Jesus which,through our faith in it, has brought back the strength of this man whom you see here and who is well known to you. It is faith in that name that has restored this man… pic.twitter.com/aDGKfEFLmY
— Kalina Boulter (@Kalina_Boulter) April 13, 2023
Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give us grace so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve you in purity of life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A Pleasant Early Morning. 9°C. Ewes and Lambs. pic.twitter.com/QNrZo7rfNd
— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) April 14, 2023
We believe Christ’s resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies: The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.
The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?
There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.
1. Jesus died. Jesus rose. [ Christianity ]
2. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceived. [Hallucination]
3. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles myth-makers [ Myth ]
4. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceivers [ Conspiracy ]
5. Jesus didn’t die. [ Swoon ]
THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS, Caravaggio, 1601 – National Gallery, London
The wine is not mentioned in The Bible, probaby because Christ’s blessing of the bread was enough for the disciples to recognise him. The risen Christ once again performs the Eucharist before the Emmaus pilgrims. pic.twitter.com/bbId6mRSmu— The Virtual Wine Museum – Le Musée Virtuel du Vin (@VIRTWINEMUSEUM) April 17, 2022
Almighty God, you show those in error the light of your truth so that they may turn to the path of righteousness: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Three Holy Women at the Empty Tomb#EasterSunday
BnF MS 1186 Psalterium (Psalter of St Louis & Blanche de Castille); 13th century (c.1230); f.25v @GallicaBnF pic.twitter.com/8TDGdjiOqW— Ennius (@red_loeb) April 9, 2023
Lyrics (from Psalm 47)–
O clap your hands together, all ye people; O sing unto God with the voice of melody. For the Lord is high and to be feared; he is the great King of all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet. He shall choose out an heritage for us, even the worship of Jacob, whom he loved.
God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. O sing praises, sing praises unto our God: O sing praises unto the Lord our King. For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with the understanding. God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon his holy seat. For God, which is highly exalted, doth defend the earth, as it were with a shield.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen
[Easter]…is the proclamation of a war already won. The war is at an end ”“ even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that. It is in this interim space that we are living: the old is past, behold it has all become new. The Easter message tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten. Ultimately they can no longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them anymore. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humourless existence of a man who has no hope. One thing still holds, and only this one thing is really serious, that Jesus is the Victor. A seriousness that would look back past this, like Lot’s wife, is not Christian seriousness. It may be burning behind ”“ and truly it is burning ”“ but we have to look, not at it, but at the other fact, that we are invited and summoned to take seriously the victory of God’s glory in this man Jesus and to be joyful in Him. Then we may live in thankfulness and not in fear.
–Karl Barth Dogmatics in Outline (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), p. 123
It was lovely to welcome families to our Easter Family Service.Easter Egg Hunt after the service and refreshments for the adults @churchofengland pic.twitter.com/VitfqVO5zz
— St Peter's Church (@tiltonchurch) April 10, 2023
O God, the living God, who hast given unto us a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead: Grant that we, being risen with him, may seek the things which are above, and be made partakers of the life eternal; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Alnmouth from St.Cuthbert's Cross. Acrylic on canvas. Re-posted for Easter. Happy Easter 😊 #art #easter #Northumberland #Alnmouth #painting pic.twitter.com/lLSpQY3Nvd
— RobertPermain (@rob_invision) April 9, 2023
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)
May this Easter fills your heart with renewed hope, love & peace. May all of us recognise the beauty of life..Happy Easter! ( Resurrection of Christ by Raphael) pic.twitter.com/SA48Cq63o0
— Liz Mathew (@MathewLiz) April 8, 2023
When a man is not truly seeking the Lord, he wants short sermons, and these of a high literary order, or else adorned with attractive rhetoric. But when he is, with his whole heart, seeking for the Savior, he is not so concerned about polite phrases and ecclesiastical correctness. He looks eagerly for a practical direction how he may come to Jesus, and he will take that from any man or woman, be their station what it may. Let him be a chimneysweep, if he will lead me to Jesus, I will follow.
So it was with this holy woman. She desired to find the Lord and she was altogether absorbed in that one pursuit. She speaks as if everybody was equally intent upon the one theme. For instead of mentioning the name Jesus, she says, “If thou hast borne him hence.” Why, Mary, what are you talking about? “About Him,” says she. But who is this of whom you speak? Ah, friends! to her there was but one “him” in all the world, just then! Oh, to be thus absorbed!
Such was the desire of Magdalene to find the Lord Jesus, that she feared no ghastly sight. Let her know where the body is laid and she will be there. That body, which had bled so much from its five wounds, must have been a heart-breaking sight to a tender-hearted woman, but she is not dismayed. Let
the body be how it may, it is the flesh and blood of her dear Lord and she must pay it homage. Wounds or no wounds, she would behold it. A wounded Christ is altogether lovely in the eyes of His redeemed. His blood, flowing for me, clothes Him with a royal crimson robe in my eyes. I fear nothing, so long
as I may but come to Him. Dear hearts, if you long for salvation, you will not find fault with those who preach the doctrine of the cross, the wounds, the blood! You will not kick at the doctrine of a crucified Savior, your Substitute condemned at the bar of justice. You want Jesus who died. You must behold
Him for yourself by faith and no ridicule of the vain, or sneer of the proud, or cavil of the doubting, can make Him uncomely in your eyes.Notice that she dreads no heavy burden. She says, “I will take him away.” Why, Mary, you could not bear away so great a load! You would fall beneath the weight of a man’s corpse! You are not strong enough for the sad task! Ah! but she thought that she could bear the blessed burden and she meant to try!
She would have accomplished it. Faith laughs at impossibility and cries, “It shall be done.” But love actually performs the deed. A heart that is burning with love has about it a seven-fold energy, whose capacity it would be hard to calculate.
Wishing you a restful Easter Sunday 🙏
Titian's 'Noli me Tangere' depicts the moment Christ rises from the dead, appearing to his grieving follower, Mary Magdalene.
Explore the story of the Passion, told through paintings in our collection: https://t.co/zOJDC0tC89 pic.twitter.com/BlCxBztJ1N
— National Gallery (@NationalGallery) April 9, 2023
Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn’t have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he’s still with us in a spiritual sense” or “I think he’s gone to heaven”. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.
The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn’t defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon – He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.
Let’s be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual” resurrection body, he doesn’t mean “non-material”, like a ghost. “Spiritual” is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God’s life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect – and in the whole world.
Good morning!
Resurrection of Christ,
Noël Coypel (1700),
350 x 255 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts
Rennes #France
Nicene Creed:
"On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures"
Angel:
"SVRREXIT, NON EST HIC”
Jesus floats toward heaven surrounded by supernatural light pic.twitter.com/uDiXTcrs9h— Miguel Calabria (@MiguelCalabria3) April 9, 2023
Sam believes that Gandalf has fallen a catastrophic distance and has died. But in the end of the story, with Sam having been asleep for a long while and then beginning to regain consciousness, Gandalf stands before Sam, robed in white, his face glistening in the sunlight, and says:
“Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?”
But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”
“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed… “How do I feel?” he cried.” Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” –he waved his arms in the air– “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), The Return of the King
"God exists: that is the real message of Easter. Anyone who even begins to grasp what this means also knows what it means to be redeemed."
~Pope Benedict XVI pic.twitter.com/DUmgk49vON— ＴＨＥＯＤＯＲＩＣ ᴺᴼᵂᴬᴷ ن (@Theo_Logica) April 18, 2022
Take the time to listen to it all from the Oxford Philomusica.
O God, who by the glorious resurrection of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ hast destroyed death, and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, being raised together with him, may know the comfort and strength of his presence, and rejoice in hope of thy everlasting glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be dominion and praise for ever and ever.
#ImageOfTheDay on #Easter Wednesday.
Christ rising from the tomb surrounded by an aureole of glory.
A 15th century painting on the reredos in the Ogle Chantry at @HexhamAbbey. pic.twitter.com/9DMZOy7uv1— Michael Sadgrove 🇪🇺 (@MichaelSadgrove) April 12, 2023
Lord Jesus, risen from the dead and alive for evermore: Stand in our midst…[in this season] as in the upper room; show us thy hands and thy side; speak thy peace to our hearts and minds; and send us forth into the world as thy witnesses; for the glory of thy name.
Today's art: Supper at Emmaus – Diego Rodríguez da Silva y Velázquez https://t.co/Nkv7Aykvvd pic.twitter.com/lx4t86YRfF
— Art and the Bible (@artbible) April 11, 2023
Without a doubt, at the center of the New Testament there stands the Cross, which receives its interpretation from the Resurrection.
The Passion narratives are the first pieces of the Gospels that were composed as a unity. In his preaching at Corinth, Paul initially wants to know nothing but the Cross, which “destroys the wisdom of the wise and wrecks the understanding of those who understand”, which “is a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles”. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (I Cor 1:19, 23, 25).
Whoever removes the Cross and its interpretation by the New Testament from the center, in order to replace it, for example, with the social commitment of Jesus to the oppressed as a new center, no longer stands in continuity with the apostolic faith.
–Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), A Short Primer For Unsettled Laymen
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
We wish you a joyful #Easter. pic.twitter.com/QKjRNujys4
— St Paul's Cathedral (@StPaulsLondon) April 1, 2018
You spend time in the book looking at Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in the Gospels. It seems that the disciples’ testimony about seeing Jesus matters to you. Why do you trust their testimony?
If you understand how people thought about death and life after death in the ancient world, you will need two strands of converging evidence.
On the one hand, there are extraordinary reports about people going to the tomb of Jesus and finding that there was no body in it. In that world, grave robbery was a common occurrence, so an empty tomb by itself says, “This is odd,” but we can tell some stories about this that are much more credible than the idea that he’s alive again.
However, if at the same time this person turns up and is seen and felt to be bodily alive and speaks to people and cooks breakfast by the shore, then that is totally unexpected as well. Those two things kind of interpret one another. We know many experiences that people have — and I’ve known of experiences like this in our own family — that somebody who recently died will suddenly show up in a room or somewhere, for a moment or two, to people that they have known, then disappear again. They knew about that kind of thing in the first century as well. They had language for that. It was like an angel visiting. There’s a place in the New Testament where the disciples think that Peter has been killed in prison in Acts Chapter 12, and he’s knocking on the door and they say, “It can’t be Peter. It must be his angel.” They think this is a kind of angelic visitation before he goes off to wherever he will go.
You need those two bits of evidence put together and then the testimony makes sense. Otherwise, empty tomb? Somebody has taken the body. That’s what Mary Magdalene thought. Appearances? “Oh, yeah, we know about those. Just go and check in the tomb. You will find there’s still a body there.” But if there isn’t, then we are into something different. So that’s why that evidence is so important.
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Today is Easter Sunday, when we celebrate the Resurrection, and here is the Resurrection panel from the east window in the chapel at @wadhamoxford. Christ is risen. pic.twitter.com/0qsOwqsPRO
— Dr Mark Kirby (@Kirby5Mark) April 9, 2023
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined1 thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
John 20:1-9
Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in; he saw and he believed. Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
Art:
The Empty Tomb, Resurrection of Jesus
Steel engraving, 1853 pic.twitter.com/iPK18Thn0W— Kalina Boulter (@Kalina_Boulter) April 9, 2023