New
It is new! It is something new, completely new. Jesus' resurrection is a new event, which can be read at different levels of understanding. The most basic level is to consider Jesus' resurrection as the proof of his divinity and of his being the Son of God and Messiah after all the humiliation suffered and the apparent defeat on the cross. Considering Jesus' resurrection as an act of divine power, as if Jesus had to use a somewhat of energy to get out of that tomb, thinking of the resurrection as a kind of God's revenge on the power of the Devil, a manifestation of Jesus' divinity and sovereignty over life and death, is extremely basic and quite simplistic. Concentrating the spiritual and existential novelty of Christianity in Jesus' resurrection as if it were the implicit affirmation of his divinity, so that He may be recognized by all as the conqueror of death and Messiah, is highly restrictive and almost disrespectful of Jesus. Yet the way of understanding is a journey, and the way of knowledge is progress. At a higher level, Jesus' resurrection is first of all a revelation, and not so much and not only about who Jesus is but about something the human mind has forgotten and denied for long. Jesus' resurrection reveals and affirms that death has never been and never will be the natural condition of humanity and of all creation. Death is a satanic provocation, not an ontological condition, that is linked to the essence of life. Man, who denied God, experiences death, more precisely the reality of dying, but he has not been able to change his status of being God's son, immortal, made of life, for life, in life. As far as humanity has become accustomed to death and dying, death has nothing to do with life and God does have nothing to do with it (Wisdom 1:13).
Our mind, alone and desperate because it is against God, accustomed to feed itself on the fear of death and of dying, finds it easier to accept that Jesus rose from the grave by act of force, as when we fight against an enemy, because this conception comforts our ignorance and impotence before death and reassures us against the fear of dying.This belief has debased Jesus, the most excellent proposal of life in joy, in a lightning rod against evil and trouble, in a devotional comforting superstition. Considering the risen Jesus only as the powerful winner against death implies the conception that he is the one whom we can trust so that he defends us against evil and death. On the contrary, considering the risen Jesus as the powerful revealer of life involves the belief that he is the one whom we can entrust ourselves so that he can elevate us to life and to a luminous evolution. Jesus did not rise from the dead to show that he can defeat death. Jesus rose from the dead to reveal that he is life, we are in life and, if we follow his procedures contained in the gospel, even though we rebelled against God, death, the satanic provocation of dying, will never control us. Jesus' resurrection is a prophetic revelation of who we are, which we have denied and forgotten, and of what we will be in God forever. Thus Jesus saves us.
At Easter dawn, the women run to the tomb and find the tomb stone rolled away and Jesus is not there. This is new, is wonderfully new, but not all of God's novelty. God's novelty is that not only is Jesus not there because He is risen but, wonderfully new, but there is no sign of a struggle, fighting, separation, challenge, conflict, confrontation, destruction, blood, and death. In that tomb there is no sign of death and dying: anger, rage, condemnation, competition, challenge, duel, separation, struggle, combat, destruction, dying, death are the signs, the footsteps of Satan, they are his most successful provocation. Jesus is not in that tomb, and for the first time in history there is no sign of death. Where is Jesus, there cannot be death, it is impossible.
Only the angels knew what they were saying and revealing to humanity when, to the women frightened and worried before the empty tomb, they said, He is not here (Luke 24.6).