Belief in the resurrection of the body is essential

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
First Reading: 2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14
Second Reading: 2 Thes 2:16–3:5
Gospel Reading: Lk 20:27-38

This Sunday’s first reading describes the torture and death of seven brothers, all of them “ready to die” rather than deny their beliefs. 

One belief was something we affirm in the Creed every Sunday.

“The King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws,” one brother said. Another, stretching out his tongue and his hands to be cut off, said, “I got these from Heaven, and because of God’s laws I disdain them, and from God I hope to get them back again.” A third said, “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of humans and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him.”

In the Gospel reading, Christ confirmed this belief: “He is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,” St. Paul says, then he “will give life to your mortal bodies also” (Rom 8:11).

Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of Christian faith from the beginning. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised,” St. Paul says; “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:13-14).

Jesus, who called himself “the resurrection and the life,” told the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the body, “You know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Jn 11:25; Mt 22:29).

Many people believe that human life continues in some spiritual fashion after death, but not that the body can rise and live forever. “On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition,” St. Augustine said.

In death, when our soul is separated from our body, our body decays and our soul goes to meet God. However, “at the last day,” “at the end of the world,” God will grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls.

“For the Lord himself will descend from Heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first,” St. Paul says (1 Thes 4:16). However, all the dead will rise: “those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement” (Jn 5:29).

Christ was raised with his own body: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself” (Lk 24:39), he said. However, his body was now “glorious.” Similarly, in him, we will rise again with our own bodies, but Christ will change them to be like his own.

“The seed you sow [in the ground] does not germinate unless it dies,” St. Paul explains. “When you sow, you do not sow the full-blown plant, but a kernel of wheat or some other grain.” What is put in the ground at a funeral “is subject to decay; what rises is incorruptible” (1 Cor 15:36-37, 42).

The Eucharist can help us understand. Just as, after the consecration at Mass, earthly bread has become the body of Christ, so our bodies, which have consumed the Eucharist, will be no longer corruptible, but incorruptible.

We are united with Christ by baptism and thereafter nourished by the Eucharist, his body, so our life is already, on earth, a participation in his death and resurrection. However, this life remains “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3) until we rise on the last day.

Still, a Christian’s body and soul already have the dignity of members of Christ’s body. This dignity demands that we treat our own bodies and those of everyone else with respect.

“The body [is meant] for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” St. Paul said. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? ... So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6:13, 15, 20).

Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights. The whole course is available in written form and, one session per week, in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also teaching the course in person: on Sundays at 2 p.m. in the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, Vancouver (33rd and Willow); and on Mondays at 10 a.m. in St. Anthony’s Church hall, 2347 Inglewood Ave., West Vancouver. Next week’s topic is “The Liturgical Year.”