2018-3-31 

朋友们，今天圣周六的福音是圣马尔谷所载的耶稣复活经过。耶稣死而复活是基督教信仰的全部意义。如果耶稣没有复活，那么所有的主教、神父、基督教牧师都应打道回府并另寻正业、所有基督徒都应立刻离开教会。

 

正如保禄所说：“如果基督没有复活，那么，我们的宣讲便是空的，我们就是众人中最可怜的了。”人们企图对耶稣复活敷衍了事，或者科学地将其解释成神话、象征或内心主观体验，这些做法当然都是没用的，都无法正确对待这一圣经信息的新奇性和纯粹的奇特性。

 

说到底就是：如果耶稣没有复活，基督教就是一个骗局、一个笑话。但如果祂真的死而复活，那么基督教就是天主的全部启示，那么耶稣就必须是我们生活的绝对中心。我们没有第三个选择。

 

Friends, on this Holy Saturday in our Gospel we hear St. Mark’s account of the Resurrection. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the be-all and end-all of the Christian faith. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, all bishops, priests, and Christian ministers should go home and get honest jobs, and all the Christian faithful should leave their churches immediately.

 

As Paul himself put it: "If Jesus is not raised from the dead, our preaching is in vain and we are the most pitiable of men." It’s no good, of course, trying to explain the Resurrection away or rationalize it as a myth, a symbol, or an inner subjective experience. None of that does justice to the novelty and sheer strangeness of the biblical message.

 

It comes down finally to this: if Jesus was not raised from death, Christianity is a fraud and a joke. But if he did rise from death, then Christianity is the fullness of God’s revelation, and Jesus must be the absolute center of our lives. There is no third option.