Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

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See also Herald Gandi (2018), The Resurrection: "According to the Scriptures"?, referring to Isaiah 53, [32] among others: The resurrection of Jesus ( Biblical Greek: ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day [note 1] after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring [web 1] [note 2] – his exalted life as Christ and Lord. [web 2] According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God. [1] [web 2] He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven. The kerygma of 1 Corinthians 15:3 states that "Christ died for our sins." [note 7] The meaning of that kerygma is a matter of debate, and open to multiple interpretations. Traditionally, this kerygma is interpreted as meaning that Jesus's death was an atonement or ransom for, or propitiation or expiation of, God's wrath against humanity because of their sins. With Jesus's death, humanity was freed from this wrath. [238] [web 14] [note 25] In the classical Protestant understanding, which has dominated the understanding of Paul's writings, humans partake in this salvation by faith in Jesus Christ; this faith is a grace given by God, and people are justified by God through Jesus Christ and faith in Him. [239] Paul's views of a bodily resurrection went against the thoughts of the Greek philosophers to whom a bodily resurrection meant a new imprisonment in a corporeal body, which was what they wanted to avoid – given that, for them, the corporeal and the material fettered the spirit. [137] Oscar Cullmann, The Early church: Studies in Early Christian History and Theology, ed. A. J. B. Higgins (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966) pp. 66–66

According to Ehrman, these two Christologies existed alongside each other, calling the "low Christology" an " adoptionist Christology, and "the "high Christology" an "incarnation Christology." [186] While adoptionism was declared heresy at the end of the 2nd century, [204] [205] it was adhered to by the Ebionites, [206] who regarded Jesus as the Messiah while rejecting his divinity and his virgin birth, [207] and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish law and rites. [208] They revered James the brother of Jesus (James the Just); and rejected Paul the Apostle as an apostate from the Law. [209] They show strong similarities with the earliest form of Jewish Christianity, and their specific theology may have been a "reaction to the law-free Gentile mission." [210] It is early in the morning. It has been three days from the time Jesus was crucified, died, and laid in a tomb. Mary heads to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus for burial. There wasn’t time to anoint the body when Jesus was first placed in the tomb. When Mary arrived, she found the tomb empty and open. The stone had been rolled away. Mary feared that someone had taken Jesus’ body. Fear must have gripped her heart. An example of the interweaving of the teachings on the resurrection with Christian relics is the application of the concept of " miraculous image formation" at the moment of resurrection to the Shroud of Turin. Christian authors have stated the belief that the body around whom the shroud was wrapped was not merely human, but divine, and that the image on the shroud was miraculously produced at the moment of resurrection. [276] [277] Quoting Pope Paul VI's statement that the shroud is "the wonderful document of His Passion, Death and Resurrection, written for us in letters of blood" author Antonio Cassanelli argues that the shroud is a deliberate divine record of the five stages of the Passion of Christ, created at the moment of resurrection. [278] Views of other religions [ edit ]Géza Vermes notes that the story of the empty tomb conflicts with notions of a spiritual resurrection. According to Vermes, "[t]he strictly Jewish bond of spirit and body is better served by the idea of the empty tomb and is no doubt responsible for the introduction of the notions of palpability (Thomas in John) and eating (Luke and John)." [129] Talpiot Tomb, discovered in 1980, subject of the controversial 2007 documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus The days following Jesus’ crucifixion must have been some of the darkest times for his followers. They had placed all their hope in him and now he was dead. Hope seemed gone. But three days later when the women went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, they found the stone rolled away. The tomb was empty, and Jesus had risen! The curse of sin and death is broken. Jesus has overcome. Now let resurrection hope fill your heart. Grab ahold of resurrection hope; a hope that is found only in the gospel message. Let faith arise. Jesus is alive. He is risen!!! Hosanna in the highest. Easter is the reminder that because Jesus is alive, we have hope. Main articles: Acheiropoieta, Shroud of Turin, and Veil of Veronica Secondo Pia's 1898 negative of the image on the Shroud of Turin has an appearance suggesting a positive image. It is used as part of the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.

The resurrection of Jesus has long been central to the Christian faith and appears within diverse elements of the Christian tradition, from feasts to artistic depictions to religious relics. In Christian teachings, the sacraments derive their saving power from the passion and resurrection of Christ, upon which the salvation of the world entirely depends. [275] Jesus crossed all of the boundary lines that separated the people of his time because he viewed the world from the perspective of what unites us, not what divides us. In these intimate sessions, Adya invites us to consider the man known as Jesus as a model of enlightened engagement with the world. He examines the story of Jesus from his birth to the Resurrection to reveal how the central events in Jesus' life parallel the stages of spiritual awakening that we may be called to experience ourselves. Adya concludes by illuminating five central archetypes of the Jesus story, Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, Judas, and Pontius Pilate, and the key insights they hold about the way we might relate to the spiritual impulse within. The emphasis on the salvific nature of the resurrection continued in Christian theology in the next centuries, e.g., in the 8th century Saint John of Damascus wrote that: "...When he had freed those who were bound from the beginning of time, Christ returned again from among the dead, having opened for us the way to resurrection" and Christian iconography of the ensuing years represented that concept. [259] Present-day [ edit ]

When the eternal and the human meet," writes Adya, " that's where love is born--not through escaping our humanity or trying to disappear into transcendence, but through finding that place where they come into union." Resurrecting Jesus is a book for realizing this union in your own life, with heart and mind wide open to the mystery inside us all. Mary turns to leave and sees Jesus. But she did not recognize him. She did not realize who was before her. Resurrection hope was standing right before her, yet Mary appeared blind to the hope of God. Her hopelessness and despair clouded her mind and spiritual eyes to the truth of resurrection hope in Christ the Lord. Romans 1:3–4: "...concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord". [42]

R. E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist Press, 1973) p. 81 Oscar Cullmann, The Early Church: Studies in Early Christian History and Theology, ed. A. J. B. Higgins (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966) p. 64

According to Hurtado, powerful religious experiences were an indispensable factor in the emergence of Christ-devotion. [177] [note 20] Those experiences "seem to have included visions of (and/or ascents to) God's heaven, in which the glorified Christ was seen in an exalted position." [5] [note 3] Those experiences were interpreted in the framework of God's redemptive purposes, as reflected in the scriptures, in a "dynamic interaction between devout, prayerful searching for, and pondering over, scriptural texts and continuing powerful religious experiences." [180] This initiated a "new devotional pattern unprecedented in Jewish monotheism," that is, the worship of Jesus next to God, [181] giving Jesus a central place because his ministry, and its consequences, had a strong impact on his early followers. [182] Revelations, including those visions, but also inspired and spontaneous utterances, and "charismatic exegesis" of the Jewish scriptures, convinced them that this devotion was commanded by God. [183] As Mary turns away in despair from the empty tomb, Jesus confronts Mary regarding her sadness of heart and her tears of sorrow. In the Gospel of Matthew, an angel appeared to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, telling her that Jesus is not there because he has been raised from the dead, and instructing her to tell the other followers to go to Galilee, to meet Jesus. Jesus then appeared to Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" at the tomb; and next, based on Mark 16:7, Jesus appeared to all the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus claimed authority over heaven and earth, and commissioned the disciples to preach the gospel to the whole world. [58] Matthew presents Jesus's second appearance as an apotheosis (deification), commissioning his followers to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." [45] In this message, the end times are delayed "to bring the world to discipleship". [59] The three Marys at the Tomb of Christ (1470) at the west portal of Konstanz Minster, Baden-Württemberg, Germany In the Antiquities of the Jews, a 1st-century account of Jewish history by Josephus, believers of the resurrection are discussed. However, this reference to the resurrection is widely believed to have been added by a Christian interpolator. [168] Within the non-canonical literature of Gospel of Peter, there is a retelling of the resurrection of Jesus. [169] Ushering in the last days [ edit ]