Believing in the Resurrection means every man’s spiritual resurrection is possible
By Marcellus Allen Roberts
The Incredulity of St. Thomas, Caravaggio, 1601-02. It was painted for Vincenzo Gustiniani, later entered the Royal Collection of Prussia, survived the Second World War unscathed, and is now in the Palais at Sanssouci, Berlin.
Do you believe in the Resurrection? No, seriously. Do you? Can you see in your mind’s eye the bloody, bruised and dead body of our crucified Lord taking life up again? This event is hidden from us because it was hidden from the Gospel witnesses. Still, the fruit derived from this meditation is ripe for the plucking.
It begins with a flash, a sudden emission of an otherworldly frequency of light, the same light that retires the sun and enlightens the eyes of men in the new heaven and the new earth, and it dwarfs the Big Bang in its consequences for the cosmos.
Life spills out of the sacred wounds, leaving them cauterized for all eternity to see. The spillage penetrates the cave walls and exposes the angel guardians of Christ’s most holy humanity, as the temple guards learn firsthand the fear of the Lord and faint, prostrate beneath the weight of glory.
If by His stripes we were healed, how much more did we benefit from the retreat of the rigor mortis in His muscles and tendons? The return of suppleness and low-level tension that is characteristic of a healthy, glorified body is pregnant with repercussions that theology has yet to plumb.
It’s no stretch to say that the stone was rolled away, not because Jesus needed an exit, but to ease the burden of the women — the first eyewitnesses of the empty tomb. His appearance to the Apostles proves that the Resurrected Christ has no need for a door, yet He still appreciates a well-prepared fish dinner. What manner of man is this?
“… and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power in us who believe, according to the working of His great might which He accomplished in Christ when He raised him from the dead and made Him sit at His right hand…” (Ephesians 1: 19-20)
The redemption won by Christ is a result of His death and His resurrection, and the contents of that redemption have yet to be fully unpacked. What does it mean to be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens?
There is no exhaustive list of these spiritual blessings. Faith only asks us to be certain that the Father has made them all available, and the Holy Spirit distributes them to whom He wills.
This leaves us with the challenge of maintaining the new definition of what the fullness of human potential is, the definition that results from the death, resurrection, and ascension of humanity in Jesus Christ.
“Every human being (or group of human beings) deserves to be valued according to the full level of human development, not according to the level of development currently achieved.” (Ten Universal Principles, by Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D.)
Fr. Spitzer tells us that you risk committing an act of malfeasance, which includes a variety of ways that a person can be treated as less than human, by not regarding everyone according to the fullness of human potential. He gives this principle’s history, which is rooted in the early days of the Spanish conquest in the New World. The arguments set forth in those days helped frame the Church’s response to the oppression of individuals and entire peoples everywhere since.
Spitzer also shows how the principle applies to the life issue of abortion. A fetus is no less human because it has not reached the fullness of human potential. For prisoners in the state of Texas, this is a cause for joy.
When abortion became a federal right in the 1970s, a culture of malfeasance was inaugurated. The irony of granting full rights to African Americans, restoring their dignity, and then enacting a law that, again, gives people the right to objectify other human beings just a few short years later, is baffling. A generation of Americans, who now find themselves middle-aged and weary of the gauntlet, know only an America of child sacrifice.
But what would make the overturning of Roe vs Wade a cause for joy to Texas prisoners?
Think about it this way: If a government teaches, through the laws it enacts, that a helpless fetus has no protections under the law, then the idea that a criminal, an adult who possibly committed multiple and heinous crimes, has any right to be valued according to full human potential, is a joke that is bound to get old sooner or later.
But if a government reorients itself to protect the most vulnerable of its citizens, which includes the unborn, eventually, the principle of full human potential might be applied to the justice system as well.
The state of Texas has gone the route of resurrection in regards to abortion. Joy!
…Or maybe scandal: Some may find it scandalous to even consider criminals as people of value, especially, perhaps, those who have been victims of encounters with the worst of humanity.
So we may need to rewind the liturgical clock a bit and revisit the previous season’s meditations with a fresh perspective.
See Jesus reclining at table. Surrounded by the twelve, Jesus takes bread and wine, blesses it and distributes it to the disciples.
No, no — you are not the one leaning upon His breast. No, you are the one dipping your bread into the cup with Jesus. Satan has entered you. You are the betrayer, Judas.
You get up and go quickly to exchange your insider information for the agreed-upon amount of silver coins. The bag is heavy in your palms with the weight of all the purchases you’ve lusted to make at the expense of turning over the Nazarene to the torturers.
But you never get around to enjoying your spoils. An unfamiliar feeling of condemnation sloughs over your thoughts, thick as molasses, darkening your mind and leaving you unprepared to now fend off the instigator of your actions and his barrage of accusations.
Silver coins clatter across the temple floor. A rope loses its slack. And then it’s all over before you can recall enough of the Messiah’s message of hope to overcome your despair.
Jesus gave us one hope, that God the Father would conform us to the image of His Beloved Son, if we are willing. Judas was either unwilling, or didn’t believe it possible. Daily, inmates in America go the way of Judas, believing that the nature of their crime has capped their human potential, devalued them permanently…and they treat themselves as such.
“…rising again upright from below.” (Angels, Barbarians and Nincompoops, by Anthony Esolen)
What an elegant definition of the word “resurrection.”
It describes the hope of every inmate who has placed his trust in the Master’s promises. We want to rise up and be seen for who we can be, not for who we have been. We want to rise up and be valued as able to contribute. We want to rise up and be heard as still in existence.
When we do rise, let it be upright. God withholds nothing that is good from those who walk uprightly. We are encouraged to believe that our potential for holiness is as great as any, even placing us face to face with God as His children.
The difficulty in all this, for inmates and for freed men, is the fact that any true resurrection is “from below.”
That someone, anyone, could descend down to the depths of hell, like Christ, or the depths of sin, like criminals, and return alive spiritually and physically, is for us, like doubting St. Thomas, hard to believe.
Maybe it is time for those who doubt that criminals can rise from their former way of life to shore up their own belief in the resurrection. maybe they ought to see for themselves the power of Christ’s resurrection at work in a prisoner.
“… that I may know him and the power of his resurrection” (Ephesians 3:10)
The full level of human potential becomes inestimable with the Resurrection of Jesus. Because He offers His salvation to all, a truly just society would view every individual in the light of God’s highest aspirations for the human race.
Believing in the Resurrection comes with the mandate to value every human being, even the worst, in light of their potential as a Child of the living God.
*Marcellus Allen Roberts is a 40-year-old Prison Oblate of St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas. He is serving a 25-year penance in the state of Texas.
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