Thursday, I Easter, April 11, 2007
(Luke 24)
The German Renaissance master Mathis Grünewald portrayed Christ’s life on what is called the Isenheim Altarpiece. The paintings of the crucifixion and the resurrection stand out. One can hardly imagine a more pathetic scene than Christ tortured on the cross. He is writhing in pain. His body is hideously contorted. And thorns from a beating with reeds cover his body. As atrocious as Jesus looks here, his resurrected body is glorious. His skin glows, and his wounds sparkle. There is not a hint of the agony he went through just two days before.
Thomas Aquinas would find the magnificent portrait of Christ’s glorified body entirely appropriate. He writes, according to one commentator, that the incorruptible soul bestows on the body “something glorious or luminous” in the resurrection. The gospel narrative today seems to attest to this transformation. Jesus’ disciples can’t believe what they are seeing as the resurrected Lord stands before them. They mistakenly believe that he is a ghost because the last time they saw him was hanging on the cross.
Aquinas does not leave such a glorification of the body solely to Jesus’ case. No, he says that everyone who dies with Christ are bound to experience this same transformation. It will not happen on the day we die, but at the resurrection of the dead on the last day. Our bodies will have all the beauty of robust youth whether we die at ninety days or ninety years. This is just another example of how God shows his love for us. It provides us still another reason to love God in return.
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