Hear the words of the Collect for Easter Day:

Almighty God, who through Thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; we humbly beseech Thee that, as by Thy special grace preventing us Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by Thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect.

May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. We pray in the name of The Father, and of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost. Amen.

He is Risen! (He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!)

The words that we have just spoken echo the central fact of the Christian faith, the tomb is empty. If this central fact is not true in every detail then we are indeed in sorry shape, for we will still be in our sins.

In the Collect for today the phrase, “Jesus Christ hast overcome death” is an affirmation of the physical Resurrection of Christ. If the resurrection was only to be of some spiritual kind, then death had not really been overcome. It may be seen as a doorway to another spiritual life, but death has not been defeated by that change.

We may see the same thing in the Epistle for today where Saint Paul says in Colossians 3:2 and 3:

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

We may view this, again, in some spiritual non-physical sense. If Christ died physically and was only spiritually resurrected, then our spirits are to become enfolded in the spiritual life of Christ in Heaven. Now while this is indeed comforting, if this is all there was to it why do the Gospels make such a big deal of some spirit, even Jesus’ walking around after death? Almost every religion on earth believes in some kind of afterlife. I say almost because the atheist’s religion does not believe in an afterlife, and make no mistake about it, atheism is a religion that requires more faith than Christianity.

However, because Christ has gone to be with The Father in a physical sense, which we celebrate in forty days on Ascension Day, this must mean that there is to be some physical component in Heaven for us also. This is the meaning of 1^st Corinthians 15:53 and 54:

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

The Incarnation, The Passion, The Death, The Resurrection, and The Ascension of Jesus Christ are all part of the one thought of God that He first stated in Genesis 1:31:

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

To put it another way, matter is not intrinsically evil. God made it, and us, and He sees all of His creation as Good in and of itself.

Therefore, as Jesus carries the representation of God’s creation back to Him in the form of the Body of Christ, not only is this the opening for us to return to God, but for our physical re-creation as well. We see this coming true in the vision of Saint John the Divine at the very end of the Revelation, chapter 21, verse 2:

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

A physical city for physical people is almost the last point that Saint John makes. I cannot stress enough the physical component of our immortality. It is the one thing that differentiates Christianity from every other religion. Morality, philosophy, and theology can come from many different sources, and much of it is even compatible with living a good and moral Christian life. However, physical suffering, death, and resurrection are either explained away, or ignored entirely. Jesus came physically to tell us the truth in more ways than one.

In the world today we are accustomed to attacks against God working in a physical way. I remember an article about Jesus walking on ice by a “learned meteorologist” and the “discovery” of the Gospel of Judas. They are each in their own way attacks upon the physical and theological doctrines of Christ.

The meteorologist begins with the assumption that miracles do not happen. He therefore looks for something that will allow him to postulate some other method for the appearance of walking on water, and he admits that his research cannot disprove that Jesus did walk on water. Yet, he ignores the records of eyewitnesses, the then current weather patterns, and pontificates an absurdity.

The Gospel of Judas’ basic point was that Jesus wanted Judas to betray Him so that Jesus could become what He was meant to be. This would mean something like an advanced “spiritual being” or perhaps “a son of God.” Yet, if it was Jesus’ plan for Judas to betray Him, why would Jesus label Judas the “son of perdition” as He says in John 17:12:

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Again Jesus makes the point about the betrayer in Matthew 26:24:

The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born.

And last of all if, Judas were simply following Jesus’ instructions, why would he commit suicide once Jesus was condemned as we read in Matthew 27:5:

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

Also in this gospel, God the Father is unknown and unknowable. The creator of the world was female, possibly a hold over from the mother earth religions. Also she made the world so badly that error, confusion, and ignorance abounded. So, to sum up, the gospel of Judas was not unknown to the Fathers of the Church. It was not included in the Canon of Scripture because it was and still is fiction and trash!

So do not lose hope in our physical resurrection. Our Lord has risen from the dead in a glorified, perfect, and immortal body. And we will too! Our Lord lives and we will too!

There will be a physical resurrection and a physical judgement. Let us not worry about anyone else unless we are sure that we are on the narrow road of Faith. Then, if anyone asks whom we are following and where we are going? We can tell them, “I am following my Lord Jesus Christ to Heaven and eternal life.”

Amen,

The Very Rev. Canon John Jacobs