What does the Resurrection mean?
Awaiting theological review
What you will understand today
What Christians mean when they say Jesus rose from the dead — and why everything depends on it.
In simple words
On the third day after the crucifixion, women who went to the tomb found it empty. Then Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to the apostles and, Paul says, to more than five hundred people at once.
This was not a dead man coming back to his old life, like Lazarus, who later died again. Jesus entered a new, transformed life that death can no longer touch.
Christians say everything depends on this. Paul wrote that if Christ has not been raised, Christian faith is empty. If he has, death does not have the last word.
Key Bible passage
One of the oldest Christian texts: Paul hands on what he himself received.
3For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: 4And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures:
1 Corinthians 15:3–4 · Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
Did you know?
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around the year 55 — about twenty-five years after the events — and he presents this summary as something he had already received from others.
A common misconception
The Resurrection is just a beautiful way of saying the disciples kept Jesus' memory alive.
In fact
The Church teaches that it is a real event — the tomb was empty and the witnesses met him — and also more than an event in history: the beginning of a new creation.
A question to take with you
If it is true that Jesus rose from the dead, what would change for you?
One small thing for today
This Sunday, remember why Christians gather on that day: every Sunday is a small Easter.
Explore next
SourcesView sources ▾
- Catechism