Real people

In today’s first reading (1 Corinthians 15:1-8), Saint Paul hammers home the reality of Christ’s resurrection, recounting some of Our Lord’s appearances following his resurrection (including his own encounter with the risen Christ).

In the midst of this list of appearances, Paul mentions this:

He appeared to more
than five hundred brothers and sisters at once,
most of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.

The resurrection of Christ is sometimes described as not “historical” - even by some believers, using an absurdly restricted sense of the word.

The actual moment of Christ’s resurrection may or may not have been observed by a human being (after all, it happened in a sealed cave), but the physical reality of his resurrection was verified and attested by literally hundred of people who saw him after that resurrection with their own eyes and heard him with their own ears (and in the case of Thomas and others, touched him with their own hands).

That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,
of the Word of life....
(1 John 1:1)

This passage is a reminder that our faith is not just something out of a book or just something we brush up against in spiritual meditation: it is real in every sense of the word.

The reality is reinforced in this letter by Paul’s reference to the hundreds of eyewitnesses who were still alive at the time this letter was written and read (just about a quarter century after the resurrection)

Real people witnessed it and passed the word on to other real people who passed it to still other real people down through the centuries all the way to the real people who first told us.

Now it is our turn: to be the people who tell other people about the reality of the risen Christ, passing on what we experience in prayer and sacrament and what we have received from the real people before us.

Christ is risen.

He is truly risen.