THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EMPTY TOMB
I believe that Christ was raised from the dead, literally. I believe too that this event was highly symbolic. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
The resurrection is highly symbolic. Its deep meaning goes far beyond the literal fact of a dead body being brought to life. Conversely, however, to cut it off from this literal fact (the real physical transformation of a once dead corpse) is to rob it of just as much meaning … and perhaps of all its credibility! For the resurrection of Christ to have meaning it must, among other things, have been a brute physical fact. There needs to be an empty tomb and a dead body returned to life. Why? Because that is what the word incarnation means. To believe in the incarnation and not to believe in the radically physical character of the resurrection is a contradiction. The word was made flesh. This term connotes many things but it always implies something that is radically physical, tangible, touchable. Hence to believe in the incarnation is to believe that God was born in real physical flesh, lived in real physical flesh, died in real physical flesh, and rose in real physical flesh. To believe that the resurrection was only an event in the faith consciousness of the disciples, however real and radical that may be conceived, is to rob the incarnation of its radical physical character and to fall into the oldest form of dualism that exists, namely, to value the non-physical and to denigrate the physical. It was an event of faith, of a changed consciousness, of new hope that empowers a new charity. But it was also an event of changed atoms and of a changed dead body. It was radically physical, just are all other events that are part of the incarnation – a word which means “God in carnality”.
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