April 14, 2024 Daily Dose of Discernment

As they talked, Jesus Himself stood among them. They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. (Lk 24:36-37)

The disciples were not expecting to see a man fully alive. They thought if someone would come back from the dead, they would be a spirit, not a fully resurrected person. Jesus was not merely placed back on this side of death to die again later. He went through death to the other side so that He is no longer subject to it. That other side is what we look for and awaits us - the life of the world to come. Because as in Adam we all die, so in Christ will we all be made alive. He is the first fruit, and we will follow after.

God made the physical world good and He hates nothing that He has created. He loved it so much that He, a spirit, irreversibly became flesh in Christ in order to restore it and be with us. Forever. That’s why He will not discard it just because some malicious devil tried to destroy it. Our blessed hope is not to live as spirits in a faraway ethereal realm because we will lose our present material home. Our blessed hope is a new earth on which we will live our human life - spirit, soul and body - as a new creation.