A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Mary stood weeping beside the tomb. This is not the blessed mother, Mary Magdalene. Even as she wept, she stooped to look inside. And there, she saw two angels in dazzling robes.
You know how these people recognize angels? It's always been a mystery to me. I've never met one except a blue eyed blonde, you know. But anyway, we continue. One of them one of the angels was seated at the head of head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had lain.
Woman, they asked her, why are you weeping? She answered, because the Lord has been taken away, and I don't know where they have put him. She had no sooner said this than she turned around and caught sight of Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize him. This is awfully mysterious. Woman, he asked her, why are you weeping?
Who is it you're looking for? Mary supposed he was the gardener, so she said to him, sir, if you are the one who carried the body off, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him away. And Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned to him and said in Hebrew, rabboni, meaning teacher. Jesus then said, do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to the father.
Rather, go to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to my father and to your father, to my god and to your god. Mary Magdalene then went in haste to the disciples. I have seen the lord, she said. Then she reported all that he had said to her, and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
Well, if you remember the text that I used Sunday from Saint Matthew regarding the same scene, well, when you read the two together, it takes you about two minutes to do it, you will find discrepancies. And when you read the three gospels and Saint John, that's the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you will find inconsistencies in the story of the resurrection. And, of course, these inconsistencies have been grasped by the critics and as evidence against the credibility of the witnesses. Well, you see, here you're faced with the same old stuff that Newman pointed out so well in his grammar of a sentence. If you have too much consistency, people will say, that's too consistent.
That's not human. Therefore, it's the credibility is poor. If you have inconsistencies, they will say they the witnesses are can't be relied upon because, obviously, they're supposed to be telling the story about the same event, and look how they differ. Therefore, the credibility is nil. See, you can't win this kind of thing.
But here's the thought that's been striking me this week. I know about these inconsistencies, but remember this. The people who wrote these texts texts and the people who read them at and this is in the first century AD, the latter the latter. All the gospels were were ex were existing at at the end of the century. They knew the inconsistency too.
And so if they were so smart to build up the great conspiracy of the resurrection of Christ, don't you think they would have been smart enough to wipe out the inconsistencies when all you had to do was smear some mink or something across it? Have you ever thought about that? Of course, people don't think too much about these things, but the the credibility of the resurrection is absolutely the most fundamental truth of our religion. And I've thought about it for '65 or '70 oh, I'd better say seventy five years. God's sake.
It's terrible to take those years, isn't it? But, anyway, think of that. What I'm trying to say is the resurrection of Christ from the dead is the heart and the soul of Catholicism and of Christianity. And I'm not talking about any spiritual interpretation of the Gnostics of the twentieth century Gnostics right in the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I'm talking about the physical resurrection of Christ from a tomb.
And it holds up. These very inconsistencies can be used as an argument for their credibility. So you know how it is. You any of you who have had any experience with automobile accident where you where you testify or where you're involved in someone, and you got three or four or five good, honest people I'm not talking about any any any misconduct. I'm talking about honest, sincere, good, capable, ordinarily ordinary people endowed with sight and hearing on a reasonable scale.
And four or five people see an accident, and you ask the four or five people what happened, you'll see you could test this yourself. You know, you you remember the old parlor game where you start with one person and tell them something, and by the time it gets to number nine or 10, what you told the first one may or may not have any resemblance to what you said. The this is a fact of life. So that these inconsistencies don't bother me in the slightest because none of them touch touch essentials. Not one of them touches essentials.
I have met priests who were all hot and bothered about the different stories of way that the claws were wrapped up. Who cares how the claws were wrapped up in the tomb? What what's that got to do with the essence of the matter? I don't if the if these stories remember, as I said Sunday, and what I don't understand is the way this point is not emphasized. See, generally, when people talk to discredit the resurrection, they they base their criticism on the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and bring they bring in John too.
But the point is we have a another test we have another witness. Well, you can't call him a witness because Saint Paul was not a witness to Christ's resurrection. But he has plenty to say about it, plenty to say about it. And he tells us explicitly, say Paul, that what he is writing, he got straight and directly from god. These are his words.
I'm not I'm not exaggerating. And he says, I did not get them from any man. In other words, what he's saying is, I am not passing on to you what I got from the from the people who knew Christ. Remember, Paul did not know Christ in in personally. He was not one of the disciples or anything of that sort.
Remember that. So what Paul is saying is that what I am teaching, I have from God straight, not from any man. I'd my my testimony does not depend on hearsay unless it's the hearsay of God almighty. Now either Paul is a liar, and then we ought to then we ought to forget the whole business, or he's telling the truth. And if he's telling the truth, this is very important evidence.
Extremely so. Extremely so. Now you'll say yes, but you know our our belief in our faith is a matter of faith, by which people mean a lot of I use this word carefully, nonsense. Because they use the word faith as opposed to knowledge, as if we could not have knowledge through faith. Of course, we don't have knowledge of an experiential sort.
You bet we don't. It's not knowledge of a philosophical sort. It is true. But who can deny our whole courts of law depend on the fact that we can get a truth through a witness? And so remember, the Catholic church has always been on the rational side.
That's been held against it. Catholicism has been condemned because it's too logical. As I said, the first thing Luther did was to Dan the Pope to hell, and along with him, Aristotle. I hope they enjoy each other's company. But the point is, we are not asked to renounce our reason.
As good old Chester ton said, a mystery is not a muddle. And when we talk about at least when I talk about faith, I'm not talking about some wishy washy, emotional or feeling or trust. I'm talking about knowledge based upon credibility of a witness. And when you bring that criterion, which is the criteria of every court of law in the world, when you bring that to bear upon the facts or the alleged facts of the resurrection of Christ, you're going to come out with your faith confirmed. I am not in the least suggesting that the resurrection of Christ is not a profound mystery.
That's not the point. I'm talking about the empty tomb. And our faith, trust, hope, and I mean hope. The virtue of hope rests upon Jesus Christ as god, and that rests upon the fact of an empty tomb. And it's the empty tomb which fills our life with faith, with hope, and with love.
It is the joy of knowing Christ. The name of the father, and of the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.