Main news for 4 June 2007

The angel whom the women meet when they come to the Teacher's tomb tells them stunning news: "He is risen." Thus a fact comes into the world that lies at the foundation of the Christian faith. I want to emphasize: not the idea of the God-manhood, not the beauty of Jesus' moral teaching, but fact. And Christianity is not theological constructions, but the acceptance of this fact into one's own biography. Look at how the content of the verse we have read helps this.

First of all, the news is brought by an angel, a messenger from God, which means that the information he gives has a supernatural level of truth. He begins with the words: "Do not be afraid." This is how God begins almost every contact of His with a human person, making clear that His omnipotence will not be directed against the person. "You seek Jesus of Nazareth": this is not about an abstract idea, but about a completely concrete Man who lived a real earthly life. "The crucified": without death, more precisely without sacrifice, more precisely still, without a voluntarily accepted execution for my sins, Jesus has no relation to me, to my biography. "He is risen": this is the center of the message, meaning Christ's victory over death, over every death, and therefore over mine. "He is not here": Christ cannot be "caught" by any place, including the tomb; He is free and able to set us free. But all this is not mere abstraction, not a purely spiritual event: "Here is the place where He was laid." All this happens in time and space, where our life also unfolds, now able to receive Christ's resurrection.